Eye dominance effects in feature search.

We studied the role of eye dominance in non-rivalry conditions, testing dichoptic visual search and comparing performance with target presented to the dominant or non-dominant eye. Using red-green glasses, subjects viewed an array of green and red lines of uniform orientation, with a differently oriented target line present on half the trials. Performance was significantly better when the dominant eye saw the target, especially when the opposite eye saw the distractors. This effect was reduced when only nearest-neighbor surrounding distractors were homogeneous. We conclude that the dominant eye has priority in visual processing, perhaps including inhibition of non-dominant eye representations.