Effect of developmental compensation on visual experience across the retinal blindspot

Determine whether adaptive compensatory mechanisms operating from birth modulate the construction of visual experience for spatial regions corresponding to the retinal blindspot, thereby influencing measurements of subjective spatial extendedness near the blindspot.

Background

This open question arises in the context of testing competing predictions about spatial extendedness from Integrated Information Theory versus Neurorepresentationalism and Active Inference. The INTREPID Consortium proposes experiments leveraging the natural retinal blindspot and cortical scotomas to assess whether missing cortical structure leads to systematic distortions (e.g., contraction) in perceived spatial distances, as IIT predicts, or whether predictive filling-in mechanisms reduce bias, as NREP and AI-C predict.

The authors note potential confounds, including individual differences in cortical microstructure and lifetime adaptation to the blindspot. They explicitly flag uncertainty about whether adaptive compensatory mechanisms from birth may affect the construction of visual experience in regions corresponding to the blindspot. Resolving this will be crucial for interpreting observed warping (or lack thereof) in spatial experience and for adjudicating between theory-specific predictions.