Drawings of the visual periphery reveal appearance changes in crowding B Sayim, J Wagemans |
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Laboratory of Experimental Psychology, University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium
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| In peripheral vision, objects that are easily discriminated in isolation are not discernible when flanked by similar close-by objects, a phenomenon known as crowding. Here, we investigated the appearance of crowded stimuli by letting observers draw stimuli presented in the periphery. Targets consisted of a letter, a letter-like item, or a scrambled letter and were presented with or without flankers of different complexity. Targets were presented in the right visual field at eccentricities of 6 or 12 degrees. Observers were asked to draw the stimuli - target and flankers - as accurately as possible. Eye tracking ensured that stimuli were only presented when observers fixated on a central fixation dot. When not fixating, stimuli were masked. We evaluated the resulting drawings and found evidence for strong changes of appearance when the stimuli were crowded. For example, several characteristics of crowding, such as position shifts of elements or target-flanker confusions, were observed. Importantly, frequent distortions, omissions, and duplications of elements indicate that crowding involves a broad spectrum of “perceptual errors” that are not revealed in standard crowding paradigms. We propose that drawings are a useful tool for investigating crowding. |
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