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Foveal crowding increases with age under limited viewing conditions
Noah Rappeport1, Maria Lev1, Uri Polat2
1School of Optometry and Vision Sciences, Faculty of Life Sciences, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel.
Scientific Reports
|November 26, 2025
Summary
Aging impairs foveal crowding under time-limited conditions, affecting visual acuity and processing speed in older adults. This impacts daily tasks like reading and driving.
Area of Science:
- Vision Science
- Gerontology
- Cognitive Neuroscience
Background:
- Aging alters visual function, often causing difficulties in real-world tasks despite intact visual acuity.
- Visual crowding, difficulty recognizing targets amid clutter, is a potential factor, but its foveal manifestation and relation to aging are unclear.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the impact of aging on foveal visual crowding.
- To examine foveal crowding under both unlimited and time-limited viewing conditions.
Main Methods:
- Thirty-three participants (ages 20-89) performed a letter recognition task.
- Target-flanker spacing was varied under unlimited and brief presentation time conditions.
Main Results:
- Aging did not significantly affect foveal crowding under unlimited viewing.
- Brief presentation times revealed significantly greater foveal crowding and reduced visual acuity in older adults.
- Reaction time increased with age, especially in unlimited viewing, despite high accuracy.
Conclusions:
- Aging primarily impacts foveal crowding under time-limited conditions, linked to decreased processing speed.
- Temporal constraints are crucial for visual assessments in older adults.
- Findings have implications for daily activities like reading and driving.
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