Monkeys Show an Oblique Effect

Monkeys aligned a cursor bar with high-contrast square-wave gratings presented in a variety of orientations. Alignment time increased with increasing spatial frequency from 6 to 24 cycles deg−1 regardless of the orientation of the grating. At higher spatial frequencies, alignment tasks took longer for obliquely oriented gratings than for horizontal and vertical ones. Reducing grating contrast by blurring the image of the 24 cycle deg−1 grating also produced longer alignment times for the obliques. These data indicate that monkeys have an oblique effect similar to that found in humans, implying that the monkey is a useful animal model for investigating the development of meridional anisotropies.