Non-fusable stimuli and the role of binocular inhibition in normal and pathologic vision, especially strabismus

Stimuli on corresponding points of both retinae that cannot be fused may cause binocular rivalry: the stimuli suppress each other alternately. This effect was used to study the influence of image sharpness upon binocular inhibition. Blurring an image means decreasing its contrast and attenuating its high spatial frequencies. Both factors diminish the time that a stimulus is perceived during rivalry. This fact has implications both for normal vision--as objects off the horopter are normally blurred--and for disturbed vision when the image of one or both eyes is (locally) deteriorated. In both cases, the binocular field of view can be combined from the 'good' parts of both eyes. Hence, the field of view may consist, in a piece-meal fashion, of parts stemming from the right or the left eye exclusively and others where both images are superimposed. We present evidence for the hypothesis that there is a common neural mechanism causing both binocular rivalry and functional amblyopia in anisometropia and strabismus. Consequences of the results on rivalry suppression for the pathophysiology and therapy of strabismic amblyopia are discussed.