Fig. 1

Illustration of the experimental procedure for measuring sensory eye dominance. a Binocular orientation combination task. Two horizontal sinusoidal gratings with equal and opposite tilts (± 7.1°) are dichoptically presented to the two eyes. The grating seen by the non-dominant eye has a fixed contrast of 50%, while the grating in the dominant eye has a starting contrast of 1% or 100%. Observers were asked to adjust the contrast in the dominant eye to achieve a balanced binocular viewing, i.e., the binocular perceived orientation = 0°. α% represents the contrast in the dominant eye when the perceived orientation is 0°. Sensory eye dominance (i.e., balance point) is quantified by the interocular ratio (dominant eye/non-dominant eye) that is needed to achieve the balanced binocular viewing. b The experimental procedure. We deprive subjects’ dominant eye for 2.5 h, and assess the sensory eye dominance at baseline, 0, 3, 6, 9, 30 min after the completion of the deprivation. Stimuli are set at 0.5, 4 or 6 c/d. Different spatial frequency conditions were conducted on three separate days