Using fMRI and a psychophysical task involving letter identification, Kleinschmidt et al. (2002) (this issue of Neuron) delineate two patterns of neural activation, which manifest in different cortical regions: a transient activation, correlated with the change of a percept, and a longer-term hysteresis, correlated with the maintenance of the percept. These findings are provocative and suggest that neural hysteresis is mediated by visual structures that interact with higher-order regions to support longer-term maintenance of a percept.