We compared the appearance of a line passing through the optic-disc blind spot with that of lines passing just medial or just lateral to the blind spot. Though there is no well-defined gap in the line, we see a consistent difference, which is hard to describe. On the other hand, during a migraine aura experienced by one of us, lines passing through scintillating scotomas showed clear sharply defined gaps.
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References
1.
von HelmholtzH, 1867/1962Treatise on Physiological Opticsvolume 3 (New York: Dover, 1962); English translation by SouthallJ P C, for the Optical Society of America (1925) from the 3rd German edition of Handbuch der physiologischen Optik (first published in 1867, Leipzig: Voss)
2.
HubelD, 1987“Vision in dim light”Nature38833–33. The blind-spot mapping program can be found in the website of David Hubel under “Blind spot” at http://hubel.med.harvard.edu/ilusion.htm
