Investigation of interocular blur suppression using luminance-modulated and contrast-modulated noise stimuli

Presenting two sufficiently dissimilar images, one to each eye, may result in interocular suppression. The present study measured interocular suppression depth and extent in binocularly normal participants when blurring one eye only with varying dioptric lens powers (+0.5, +1, +2, and +4 D). Visual stimuli consisted of eight concentric rings of alternate polarity, divisible into eight sectors, within the central circular 24° visual field. Binocular “ring” stimuli therefore consisted of 64 individually testable dichoptic sectors. Using a two-alternative forced choice paradigm with a staircase procedure, signal strength of each dichoptic sector in the blurred eye was adjusted to perceptually match that of the surrounding ring from the nonblurred eye, determining the point of subjective equality. Rings were defined by differences in luminance (L), luminance-modulated noise (LM), or contrast-modulated noise (CM). Suppression depth was similar irrespective of sector location within the visual field and increased with increasing difference in interocular blur. Adding dynamic noise (LM vs. L stimuli) reduced the effect of blur on measured suppression depth. Significantly deeper suppression was measured for CM than for LM stimuli, both created using dynamic noise, the difference increasing at higher levels of interocular blur. As binocularity is disrupted with interocular blur, this result suggests that CM envelope combination may be processed by later mechanisms receiving binocular input than those required for the processing of LM stimuli. Differences in suppression depth between LM and CM stimuli could not be attributed to differences in spatial summation properties, stimulus visibility, noise modulation, or differential effects on blur discriminability.