Foveal crowding appears to be robust to normal aging and glaucoma unlike parafoveal and peripheral crowding

Abstract

Visual crowding is the inability to recognize a target object in clutter. Previous studies have shown an increase in crowding in both parafoveal and peripheral vision in normal aging and glaucoma. Here, we ask whether there is any increase in foveal crowding in both normal aging and glaucomatous vision. Twenty-four patients with glaucoma and 24 age-matched normally sighted controls (mean age = 65 ± 7 vs. 60 ± 8 years old) participated in this study. For each subject, we measured the extent of foveal crowding using Pelli's foveal crowding paradigm (2016). We found that the average crowding zone was 0.061 degrees for glaucoma and 0.056 degrees for age-matched normal vision, respectively. These values fall into the range of foveal crowding zones (0.0125 degrees to 0.1 degrees) observed in young normal vision. We, however, did not find any evidence supporting increased foveal crowding in glaucoma ( p = 0.375), at least in the early to moderate stages of glaucoma. In the light of previous studies on foveal crowding in normal young vision, we did not find any evidence supporting age-related changes in foveal crowding. Even if there is any, the effect appears to be rather inconsequential. Taken together, our findings suggest unlike parafoveal or peripheral crowding (2 degrees, 4 degrees, 8 degrees, and 10 degrees eccentricities), foveal crowding (<0.25 degrees eccentricity) appears to be less vulnerable to normal aging or moderate glaucomatous damage.

The Complexity of Reading Revealed by a Study with Healthy Older Adults

“…Contrary to our expectations, we found no worsening of crowding as age increased. These findings are consistent with previous studies showing the absence of increased vulnerability in older adults in identifying a stimulus due to spatially contiguous flankers [ 56 , 57 , 58 ]. However, other studies have reported a significant age-related susceptibility to crowding [ 10 , 55 ].…”

“…It is unclear if crowding worsens with age and whether this could contribute to poorer reading performance in older adults as well; some authors argue that the impact of visual crowding increases with age, hence a greater susceptibility to crowding is linked to a worse reading speed [ 10 , 55 ]; on the opposite side, other authors claim that crowding is unaffected by aging, while surround suppression is instead [ 56 , 57 , 58 ].…”

Reliability and validity of a novel attention assessment scale (broken ring enVision search test) in the Chinese population

“…Males show increased activation in the left hemisphere’s inferior parietal lobule, while females show significant activation in the right hemisphere’s inferior frontal gyrus, insula, caudate, and temporal areas ( de Fockert et al, 2001 ; Boi et al, 2011 ), which may be related to the modulation by estrogen and testosterone ( Oberauer, 2019 ). Additionally, FA was not observed to be affected by gender, age and years of education in this study, which is in line with the results of the most recent application of the scale, i.e., crowding did not worsen with age ( Pegoraro et al, 2024 ), and these findings are consistent with previous studies ( Malavita et al, 2017 ; Shamsi et al, 2022 ).…”