Shape recognition in amblyopia

The results of recent investigations of supra-threshold spatial vision in amblyopia have indicated that the amblyopic eye may be more disadvantaged than acuity or contrast detection measurements have suggested. We report here on the sensitivity of the amblyopic eye when performing tasks requiring the recognition of small spatial differences in thin bright line stimuli displayed in a variety of 2-D configurations. Amblyopes were able to perform these tasks, but their amblyopic eye was generally poorer than their normal eye by a multiplicative factor. It is argued that this pattern of results indicates that spatial scrambling rather than blurring is an appropriate model for amblyopia.