You can find similar aftereffects when you stare out the front window of a moving vehicle for a couple of minutes and then stop: the landscape suddenly seems to slowly move away from you for some time; or when you stare out the widow of a train: when it stops the landscape appears to slowly move in the opposite direction. Aftereffects of this type can have any direction: when you stare at a rotating image and the rotation stops, the image appears to rotate in the opposite direction. Depending on the stimulus, this can be a smooth motion or it "jumps" forward and back.

This is called the **direction aftereffect** (DAE), "whereby prolonged exposure to a moving pattern affects the perceived direction of subsequent motion" (Clifford, 2002). This is an effect of [perceptual adaptation][1], where the brain compensates for a supposed error in perception.

The mechanism behind this phenomenon was tested by Schrater and Simoncelli (1998):

> Adaptation to a moving visual pattern induces shifts in the perceived
> motion of subsequently viewed moving patterns. Explanations of such
> effects are typically based on adaptation-induced sensitivity changes
> in spatio-temporal frequency tuned mechanisms (STFMs). An alternative
> hypothesis is that adaptation occurs in mechanisms that independently
> encode direction and speed (DSMs). Yet a third possibility is that
> adaptation occurrs in mechanisms that encode 2D pattern velocity
> (VMs). We performed a series of psychophysical experiments to examine
> predictions made by each of the three hypotheses. The results indicate
> that: (1) adaptation-induced shifts are relatively independent of
> spatial pattern of both adapting and test stimuli; (2) the shift in
> perceived direction of motion of a plaid stimulus after adaptation to
> a grating indicates a shift in the motion of the plaid pattern, and
> not a shift in the motion of the plaid components; and (3) the 2D
> pattern of shift in perceived velocity radiates away from the
> adaptation velocity, and is inseparable in speed and direction of
> motion. Taken together, these results are most consistent with the VM
> adaptation hypothesis.

* * *

Sources:

 - Clifford, C. W. G. (2002). Perceptual adaptation: Motion parallels orientation. *Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 6*, 136-143. doi:[10.1016/S1364-6613(00)01856-8][2] Available online at http://psy.mq.edu.au/vision/~peterw/corella/315/clifford.pdf
 - Schrater, P.R. and Simoncelli, E.P. (1998) Local velocity representation: evidence from motion adaptation. *Vision Research, 38*, 3899-3912. doi:[10.1016/S0042-6989(98)00088-1][3] Available online at: http://www.cns.nyu.edu/pub/lcv/schrater97.pdf


  [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perceptual_adaptation
  [2]: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1364-6613%2800%2901856-8
  [3]: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0042-6989%2898%2900088-1