Symmetry discrimination in patients with retinitis pigmentosa

To investigate the relative sensory and perceptual contributions to central visual function of patients with retinitis pigmentosa (RP), we tested symmetry discrimination using block patterns with varying types of symmetric organization. Eleven control subjects with normal vision and 11 patients with RP with 20/30 visual acuity or better, viewed patterns presented for 255 msec. The patterns differed in the type of symmetric organization and the subjects were required to identify the type. The control subjects performed significantly better (89.2%) than the patients (74.5%). Four hypotheses to account for these findings were tested and the results were as follows, (1) A reduction in pattern luminance did not change symmetry discrimination performance in the control subjects. (2) Large reductions in pattern contrast did not alter symmetry discrimination in the control subjects. (3) Reductions in stimulus duration, likewise, did not produce similar error patterns in the control subjects as those observed in the patients with RP. (4) Alterations in spatial sampling density did not completely account for the patients' deficits. None of the retinally based explanations alone was sufficient to account for our findings. Additionally, we suggest that alterations of sensory input may affect the perceptual encoding of the relationship among pattern elements.