A psychophysical investigation of the behavioural relevance of neurophysiological feature detectors (S cells).
The aim of the study was to establish whether monaural auditory stimulation (a nonretinal perceptual variable) affects the class 1 oblique effect (a behavioural manifestation of simple cells). The left or right monaural stimulus was a pure tone, 1000 Hz, 70 dB(A), delivered continuously throughout the experimental sessions. The left or right monocular stimulus was a thin red phosphorescent bar the orientation of which was manipulated. In order to determine the oblique effect differential orientation thresholds for principal meridians were compared to those for oblique orientations. The results, indicating an interaction effect of the monaural and monocular stimulation on the magnitude of the oblique effect, are a further demonstration that the oblique effect is not as simple as some theories (derived from extrapolation from neurophysiological findings) would imply.
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D004423:Ear; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D009799:Ocular Physiological Phenomena; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D012684:Sensory Thresholds; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000502:physiology