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Updated: Jun 17, 2026

The Measurement and Treatment of Suppression in Amblyopia
Published on: December 14, 2012
Mechanisms underlying perceptual learning of contrast detection in adults with anisometropic amblyopia
Chang-Bing Huang1, Zhong-Lin Lu, Yifeng Zhou
1Laboratory of Brain Processes (LOBES), Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA. changbih@usc.edu
Abstract:
What underlies contrast sensitivity improvements in adults with anisometropic amblyopia following perceptual learning in grating contrast detection? In this paper, we adopted the external noise approach (Z.-L. Lu & B. A. Dosher, 1998) to identify the mechanisms underlying perceptual learning in adults with anisometropic amblyopia. By measuring contrast thresholds in a range of external noise conditions at two performance levels (79.3% and 70.7%), we found that a mixture of internal additive noise reduction and external noise exclusion underlay training induced contrast sensitivity improvements in adults with anisometropic amblyopia. In comparison, normal adults exhibited only small amount of external noise exclusion under the same training conditions. The results suggest that neural plasticity may be more robust in amblyopia, lending further support of perceptual learning as a potential treatment for adult amblyopia.
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