Abstract
Amblyopia is a neurodevelopmental disorder of the visual system that is associated with disrupted binocular vision during early childhood. There is evidence that the effects of amblyopia extend beyond the primary visual cortex to regions of the dorsal and ventral extra-striate visual cortex involved in visual integration. Here, we review the current literature on global processing deficits in observers with either strabismic, anisometropic, or deprivation amblyopia. A range of global processing tasks have been used to investigate the extent of the cortical deficit in amblyopia including: global motion perception, global form perception, face perception, and biological motion. These tasks appear to be differentially affected by amblyopia. In general, observers with unilateral amblyopia appear to show deficits for local spatial processing and global tasks that require the segregation of signal from noise. In bilateral cases, the global processing deficits are exaggerated, and appear to extend to specialized perceptual systems such as those involved in face processing.
Highlights
Amblyopia is a neurodevelopmental disorder of the visual system
SUMMARY OF GLOBAL MOTION AND FORM Despite the use of varied paradigms, several patterns emerge from studies investigating global form and motion perception in amblyopia
For global form, the evidence is less convincing. This is interesting in light of the evidence described above which suggests that local temporal processing is less affected by amblyopia than local spatial processing
Summary
Amblyopia is a neurodevelopmental disorder of the visual system. It is caused by abnormal visual experience during early childhood, and it results in persistent deficits in cortical processing even when normal input to the visual cortex is restored (see Wong (2012) and Birch (2013) for recent reviews). Unilateral amblyopia can be treated effectively in early childhood, when the visual cortex is still developing, by providing best refractive correction (Stewart et al, 2004; Cotter et al, 2012) followed by occlusion of the fellow eye (Wallace, 2006; Wallace et al, 2011a) This treatment improves amblyopic eye visual acuity, compliance can be problematic (Smith et al, 1995; Loudon et al, 2006; Tjiam et al, 2011), long treatment periods are often required (Awan et al, 2010) and improvements in binocular visual function are limited (Wallace et al, 2011b). A summary figure is provided at the end of the review which is designed to identify key themes
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