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Using Rapid Serial Visual Presentation to Measure Set-Specific Capture, a Consequence of Distraction While Multitasking

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Visual crowding is correlated with awareness.

Thomas S A Wallis¹, Peter J Bex

¹Schepens Eye Research Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02114, USA. thomas.wallis@schepens.harvard.edu

Current Biology : CB

|February 1, 2011

Summary

Visual crowding, where nearby objects hinder perception, occurs only when flanking items are consciously perceived. Suppressing awareness of flankers can release targets from crowding effects, even when physically present.

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Neuroscience
Visual Perception

Background:

Crowding is a phenomenon in the peripheral visual field where the identification of a target is impaired by nearby stimuli (flankers).
Visual features can sometimes fail to reach conscious awareness, leading to misinterpretations of scenes.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate whether conscious awareness of flanking features is a prerequisite for visual crowding to occur.
To determine if crowding can be mitigated by rendering flankers perceptually invisible.

Main Methods:

A letter identification task was employed where targets were presented with varying numbers of flankers.
Adaptation-induced blindness was used to render physically present flankers perceptually absent.
Observers reported perceived letter count and target identity on each trial, allowing assessment of awareness and crowding.

Main Results:

Target identification performance was directly correlated with the number of perceived flankers, not the physically present ones.
Crowding effects were significantly reduced when flankers were suppressed from visual awareness.

Conclusions:

Conscious awareness of flanking elements is necessary for crowding to manifest.
Crowding can be released by suppressing the awareness of attended flanking stimuli, suggesting a role for conscious perception in this visual phenomenon.