Four-dot masking in monoptic and dichoptic viewing

In visual backward masking paradigms, the visibility of a target is reduced using various kinds of mask stimuli presented immediately after the target. Four-dot masking is one such kind of backward masking, caused by four surrounding dots neither spatially adjacent nor similar to the target. Four-dot masking is often considered to involve object-level interferences. However, low-level contributions such as lateral inhibition and motion detection are also possible. To elucidate the loci of the underlying mechanism within the visual hierarchy, we compared the masking effect between monoptic and dichoptic viewing conditions. A target and a four-dot mask, which also served as a spatial cue to the target location, were presented to the same eye in monoptic viewing, whereas they were presented to different eyes in dichoptic viewing. Observers were then asked to discriminate the target shape. We found a significant decline in the correct response rate compared to the baseline condition in which the four-dot mask was not presented, and the masking effect was equivalent between the monoptic and dichoptic viewings. These results demonstrate that four-dot masking stems exclusively from processing within the binocular pathway.