Binocular rivalry: suppression depends on orientation and spatial frequency.

In binocular rivalry the time during which different stimuli are perceived depends--amongst other things--on their spatial frequency (sf) contents, on contrast and on orientation. Limiting the sf-range of both periodic and aperiodic stimuli in different ways (while keeping the contrast constant) decreased their predominance. This result seems to corroborate the concept of spatial frequency channels in human vision. Decreasing the contrast also decreased predominance. Thus blurred patterns are suppressed by sharply focused ones because of both their lower contrast and their loss of high sf's. This has consequences for the therapy of strabismic amblyopia. Obliquely oriented patterns were almost as dominant as vertical ones and much more than horizontal ones. Instead of a conventional "oblique-effect" we found a "vertical-effect".