PSYCHOPHYSICAL EVIDENCE FOR AREA V2 INVOLVEMENT IN THE REDUCTION OF SUBJECTIVE CONTOUR TILT AFTEREFFECTS BY BINOCULAR-RIVALRY

Previous research suggests binocular rivalry disrupts extrastriate, bu t not striate processes, although the locus along the visual pathway a t which such disruption first occurs is uncertain. It has been argued that subjective contours arise via a two-stage process in which end-st opped cells feed into orientation-sensitive neurones in V2, and that o rientation aftereffects induced with subjective contours are the produ ct of mechanisms similar to those giving rise to real contour aftereff ects. If binocular rivalry disrupts the acquisition of subjective cont our aftereffects, then it follows from this model that rivalry disrupt s processing in V2. Experiments reported here confirm this and provide evidence which suggests binocular rivalry arises through interactions between binocular neurones, rather than via some type of specialized binocular rivalry mechanism.