Abstract
Short-term monocular deprivation in adults has been shown to temporarily strengthen the contribution of the patched eye to a fused percept. In adults, the effect of monocular deprivation disappears within 30 minutes after the patch has been taken off (Zhou et al., doi: 10.1155/2017/4780876). Here we investigate whether visual deprivation (sitting in the dark) after patching would preserve the effect of monocular deprivation. We patched six adults with normal vision for two hours with a translucent eyepatch. We used a binocular phase combination task to measure each eye's contribution to a fused percept. For the control condition, subjects performed two rounds of baseline tests, were patched for two hours, then performed post-patching measurements at 0, 3, 6, 12, 24, 48, 60 and 96 minutes after patch removal. For the visual deprivation condition, the subjects sat in darkness after patching with both eyes covered for one hour. Subjects then performed the post-patching tests. Each subject completed two sessions for every condition. There was a significant difference (Wilcoxon Signed-Rank, P< 0.05, Cohen's d = 1.5) in the effect of monocular deprivation between the darkness and control conditions. Subjects recovered from monocular deprivation even when sitting in the dark. This result suggests that recovery from the patching effect does not require visual input.
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2018