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Updated: Aug 7, 2026

Assessing Binocular Central Visual Field and Binocular Eye Movements in a Dichoptic Viewing Condition
Published on: July 21, 2020
Center-surround interactions in foveal and peripheral vision
1Department of Psychology, Jordan Hall, Bldg. 420, Stanford University, 94305-2130, Stanford, CA, USA.
Abstract:
The perceived contrast of a central stimulus can be decreased (surround suppression) or increased (surround facilitation) by the presence of surround stimuli. In this report we examined center-surround interactions in foveal and peripheral vision using contrast-matching tasks. We found that: (1) surround suppression became markedly stronger as the center-surround stimulus was moved toward the periphery; (2) surround facilitation diminished in the periphery; and (3) the suppression in the periphery was less orientation- and frequency-specific than that in the fovea, so that significant suppression was induced even when the central and surround gratings had very different orientations and spatial frequencies. The different center-surround interactions in the fovea and periphery can not be accounted for by cortical magnification, suggesting that center-surround interactions in the fovea and periphery are incommensurable and play different functional roles in human image processing.
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