title: Patterns of spatial distortions in human amblyopia are invariant to stimulus duration and instruction modality.
abstract: We investigated the patterns of two-dimensional spatial distortions in human amblyopia, using three different psychophysical mapping procedures. Strabismic and strabismic-anisometropic amblyopes showed consistent distortions, consisting in enlargement, shrinkage, or torsion of portions of the tested visual field. Purely anisometropic amblyopes and strabismics with alternating fixation showed increased spatial uncertainty, but no consistent distortions. For all groups of subjects, there was a very good correspondence between the patterns of distortion obtained with the three methods. We conclude that the spatial distortions are robust across different procedures. They might reflect a genuine rearrangement of the cortical topography as a result of strabismus.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Psychology, Institute for Psychology, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Mertonstrasse 17, 60054 Frankfurt, Germany. sireteanu@psych.uni-frankfurt.de
authors.forename: Ruxandra
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sireteanu
authors.forename: Aylin
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Thiel
authors.forename: Sandra
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Fikus
authors.forename: Adrian
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Iftime
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000550:Amblyopia / Q000523:psychology*; D001307:Auditory Perception; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology; D010469:Perceptual Distortion / Q000502:physiology*; D013285:Strabismus / Q000523:psychology; D013997:Time Factors; D014787:Vision Tests / Q000379:methods; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*