Measurement of Visual Aftereffects and Inferences about Binocular Mechanisms in Human Vision

There is conflicting evidence concerning the characteristics of binocular channels in the human visual system with respect to the existence of a ‘pure’ binocular channel that responds only to simultaneous stimulation of both eyes. Four experiments were conducted to resolve these discrepancies and to evaluate the evidence for the existence of such an exclusive binocular channel. In the first three studies, tilt aftereffects were measured after monocular adaptation. The relative sizes of the direct, interocularly transferred, and binocular aftereffects were not influenced by the configuration of the adapting pattern (experiment 1), or by the eye used for adaptation (experiment 2). There were also consistent interobserver differences in the relative sizes of the aftereffect seen after monocular adaptation (experiment 3). Taken together, these data raise questions about the appropriateness of a monocular adaptation paradigm for evaluating the presence of a pure binocular channel in observers with normal binocular vision. In experiment 4, in which the paradigm of alternating monocular adaptation was used, data were obtained that are consistent with the presence of a pure binocular channel.