Abstract

Most information about eye dominance and bin ocular rivalry comes from studies using foveal stimuli. In the present experiments, we measured dominance in a rivalry task at thirty-five locations in a 20 × 15° field. To assess dominance, dichoptic stimuli were presented at one location for 250 ms. Three pairs of stimuli were used: vertical vs horizontal, left oblique vs right oblique, red vs green. Each pair was presented forty times at each location. Subjects gave a forced choice response to indicate which stimulus was most clearly visible on each trial. For each stimulus pair, some spatial locations were dominated by the left eye and others by the right. Repeatable idio-syncratic spatial distributions of dominance were found. Foveal eye dominance did not predict dominance elsewhere in the visual fields of normal subjects. Within a subject, vertical vs horizontal results were significantly correlated with oblique results (p < 0.05). However, the same results were not significantly correlated with the results for color rivalry. These results suggest that eye dominance is a measure of foveal dominance. They give further support to the hypothesis that color and form are processed somewhat independently in the visual system.

© 1987 Optical Society of America