LTP_BinocularRivalryModulation.xlsx

In this study, we induced binocular rivalry by dichoptically presenting orthogonal, sinusoidal gratings. Dichoptic presentation was achieved using red/green anaglyphs. The aim of our first experiment was to determine suitable grating parameters. Specifically, we aimed to identify a stimulus configuration that generated minimal time spent in piecemeal and stable alternation rates across trials. In our second experiment, we used this stimulus to assess whether monocular rapid visual stimulation modulates binocular rivalry dynamics and/or dominance durations in individuals with normal binocular vision, based on previous work showing that rapid visual stimulation induces LTP-like effects in human visual cortex (Teyler et al., 2005; Clapp et al., 2006a; Normann et al., 2007; Ross et al., 2008; Sanders et al., 2018). Our hypothesis was that rapid monocular visual stimulation would strengthen the cortical response to inputs from the stimulated eye and that this would increase the relative time spent perceiving the stimulus presented to the stimulated eye during binocular rivalry (i.e. increase the perceptual dominance of the stimulated eye). In a third experiment, we measured binocular rivalry before and after viewing a monocular static grating as a test of monocular visual adaptation.