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. 1991 Jun;437:449–460. doi: 10.1113/jphysiol.1991.sp018605

Tonic interocular suppression and binocular summation in human vision.

N Denny 1, T E Frumkes 1, M C Barris 1, T Eysteinsson 1
PMCID: PMC1180057  PMID: 1890644

Abstract

1. Spatial sensitivity of human foveal vision was examined using sinusoidally modulated gratings. Our primary concern was the influence of interocular light adaptation upon monocular visibility. 2. Interocular adapting influences depend upon spatial frequency and adapting luminance. Interocular adaptation has a negligible influence upon the sensitivity to 1 cycle/deg gratings. Any visible interocular adapting field improves the sensitivity to intermediate spatial frequencies (2-5 cycles/deg). 3. Brighter interocular backgrounds (greater than 0.1 cd/m2) improve sensitivity to higher spatial frequencies (10-20 cycles/deg). 4. The interocular adapting influences summarized in (2) and (3) above cannot be duplicated by monocular or binocular adaptation. Similarly, monocular or binocular adaptation have negligible influences upon binocular visibility. 5. The interocular adapting effect summarized in (3) above can be duplicated by pressure blinding the contralateral eye. We conclude that monocular spatial sensitivity is subject to a tonic interocular suppression (TIS) from the dark-adapted eye. 6. The spatial sensitivity resulting from binocular viewing is nearly identical to that observed by combining monocular viewing with interocular light adaptation. We suggest that the improvement in sensitivity resulting from two-eyed viewing may be attributable to the removal of TIS instead of to binocular physiological summation.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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