Meridional amblyopia in monkeys.

Contrast sensitivity as a function of the orientation of a grating stimulus was determined by behavioral methods for four rhesus monkeys. Two of the monkeys had been reared with normal binocular experience, had spherical refractive errors, and showed a normal oblique effect. The other two monkeys which had been reared with one eyelid sutured (which was still sutured during these experiments), showed astigmatic refractive errors in the non-deprived eye and grating contrast sensitivity as a function of orientation that was correlated with the principal meridians of their astigmatism. Control experiments showed that the meridional amblyopia was not due to an uncorrected refractive error. Reaction time measures of contrast sensitivity for suprathreshold grating patterns showed that meridional amblyopia was not present for high contrast gratings.