Seeing the bigger picture: an amblyopic advantage in the global integration of moving visual information?

Abstract

Devices used to incorporate global information by normal and amblyopic eyes were investigated using the Classification Image (CI) technique. An orientation task with randomly orientated tilting Gabor patches and a motion-direction task using randomly directed moving discs were utilized. Participants judged the near-threshold average global orientation or motion-direction in each. CIs were calculated, adding noise samples eliciting correct responses and subtracting noise samples producing incorrect responses. Results illustrated normal participants had consistently narrow perceptive fields as was the case for amblyopes in the orientation task. For global motion-direction judgements, amblyopic perceptive fields were far wider, illustrating sparse sampling of elements. This reflected reduced inhibition for amblyopic motion processing mechanisms; a diminished suppression device proving advantageous for this type of observer.