So I was scared to try it, but eventually I did and for me the effect went away after a couple minutes. Maybe I'm lucky, but the warnings & the legend of the effect lasting months make such a good story, I have to wonder if it's a little overstated.
But -- what if the effect is just as easy to unlearn somehow, as it is to learn? It's existence may have a lot to do with gratings being pretty uncommon in nature, leaving a weak spot in the system that is easily trainable and slow to re-adapt just because we don't stare at gratings very often.
For long-lasting effect mis-calibrating any of these low level visual recognizers, you need to look at the test pattern for quite a while. Just a minute or two isn’t going to prompt a long-term effect.
I don't remember how long I tried the first time, but I'm sure it was not longer than 2-3 minutes.
The article says an anti-McCoullough effect can override the first effect. Can you also undo or override one ME with another ME using opposing colors?
A terrible idea would be to make a video game (or a short movie maybe) which triggered the effect. Imagine if the background in (e.g.) Super Hexagon were designed for this purpose...
At least for me, it seems to be truly permanent.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2012/nov/12/improbable...