What is Suppressed during Binocular Rivalry?

Abstract

To answer the question ‘What is suppressed during binocular rivalry?’ a series of three experiments was performed. In the first experiment observers viewed binocular rivalry between orthogonally oriented patterns. When the dominant and suppressed patterns were interchanged between the eyes observers continued seeing with the dominant eye, indicating that an eye, not a pattern, is suppressed during rivalry. In a second experiment it was found that a suppressed eye was able to contribute to stereopsis. A third experiment demonstrated that the predominance of an eye could be influenced by prior adaptation of the other eye, indicating that binocular mechanisms participate in the rivalry process.