Peripheral fading with monocular and binocular viewing

Abstract

This study measured the fading times of peripheral targets as a function of whether viewing was monocular or binocular, and of brightness contrast. Data from a binocularly normal group showed Troxler fading to be significantly faster with monocular (i.e., patched) than with binocular viewing. In contrast, one-eyed observers showed significantly longer fading times than the two-eyed observers viewing monocularly and equivalent times to their binocular viewing. A control experiment showed that these findings were not due to worse fixation stability, larger pupil sizes, or an unusually large blinking rate in the enucleated group. The enucleated group actually exhibited a slight miosis, equivalent fixation stability, and a normal blinking rate. In both experiments, the times to fading of all observers were a function of brightness contrast. We conclude that in binocularly normal observers patching or closing one eye does not produce monocular vision but rather a condition of weak binocular rivalry, and that the absence of inhibitory binocular interactions in the enucleated group may explain, in part, their resistance to fading and their superior performance in other contrast-defined tasks.