We determine the anisotropy of the mobility of photoexcited charge car
riers in single crystals of KNbO3 and BaTiO3 by means of a purely opti
cal method. In orthorhombic KNbO3 the mobility anisotropy is measured
for both electrons and holes giving mu(a)/mu(c) = 1.05 +/- 0.06, mu(b)
/mu(c) = 2.9 +/- 0.3 for electrons and mu(a)/mu(c) = 1.15 +/- 0.09, mu
(b)/mu(c) = 1.9 +/- 0.2 for holes. In BaTiO3 we find for holes mu(a)/m
u(c) = 19.6 +/- 0.6. Our experiment also demonstrates that the acousti
c phonon contribution to the dielectric permittivity is substantially
different for spatially modulated electric fields as compared to the h
omogeneous case.