Ocular Equivocation: The Rivalry Between Wheatstone and Brewster

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is a well-researched account of a little-known and intriguing chapter in the history of the science of binocular vision, written by an authority on the subject. I have a few suggestions for improvement.

It is clear from the text that the law of visible direction is central to Brewster’s position, but it is not clear what that law entails. A brief explanation would be helpful. At present I could only find the brief phrase “alignment with the point stimulated on the retina”.

Brewster and Wheatstone’s description of the ‘Wheatstone experiment’ evidently differed, but in the text I could find only Wheatstone’s description; what was Brewster’s?

It would be informative to add an indication of the year to the sentence introducing Rollman’s use of red/blue glasses. The in-text citation style doesn’t reveal the year without looking up the citation.

Page 4: “Wheatstone reported that the two thick lines fused and were seen in depth but the vertical line”. Change to “[…] the thin vertical line” to avoid ambiguity.

Author Response

This is a well-researched account of a little-known and intriguing chapter in the history of the science of binocular vision, written by an authority on the subject. I have a few suggestions for improvement.

Thank you for the kind comments and suggestions.  As you will see below, all the points raised have been addressed.

It is clear from the text that the law of visible direction is central to Brewster’s position, but it is not clear what that law entails. A brief explanation would be helpful. At present I could only find the brief phrase “alignment with the point stimulated on the retina”.

Brewster's stated 'law' of visible direction has been added.

Brewster and Wheatstone’s description of the ‘Wheatstone experiment’ evidently differed, but in the text I could find only Wheatstone’s description; what was Brewster’s?

Brewster's account of the Wheatstone figure is added.

It would be informative to add an indication of the year to the sentence introducing Rollman’s use of red/blue glasses. The in-text citation style doesn’t reveal the year without looking up the citation.

The year in which Rollman published his paper (1853) is added.

Page 4: “Wheatstone reported that the two thick lines fused and were seen in depth but the vertical line”. Change to “[…] the thin vertical line” to avoid ambiguity

Thank you for the suggestion which has been acted upon.

Reviewer 2 Report

This is a very well-written historical perspective on the rivalry between two eminent figures at the dawn of research on stereo perception - Brewster and Wheatstone. It is a particularly clever and enticing move by the author to use the phenomenon of binocular rivalry to illustrate the clash between the two personae and their diverging interpretations about the site of stereo processing.

Author Response

This is a very well-written historical perspective on the rivalry between two eminent figures at the dawn of research on stereo perception - Brewster and Wheatstone. It is a particularly clever and enticing move by the author to use the phenomenon of binocular rivalry to illustrate the clash between the two personae and their diverging interpretations about the site of stereo processing.

Thank you for the kind comments. It is not often that one has the opportunity of making apposite visual images to accompany a textual (and historical) argument, but this is the case for the rivalries between Wheatstone and Brewster.