The Bouma law accounts for crowding in 50 observers

Kurzawski, Jan W.; Burchell, Augustin; Thapa, Darshan; Winawer, Jonathan; Majaj, Najib J.; Pelli, Denis G.

doi:10.1167/jov.23.8.6

Cited by 17 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 111 publications

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“…Receptive field overlap can also explain variations in crowding not measured in the current study. Similar to the upper-lower anisotropy, crowding is greater on the vertical meridian than the horizontal (Petrov & Meleshkevich, 2011a; Greenwood et al, 2017; Kurzawski et al, 2023). This too could be driven by variations in receptive field overlap between the elements, in turn driven by increases in receptive field size (Himmelberg, Winawer, & Carrasco, 2023) or spacing along these locations of the visual field.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 87%

“…A second factor known to alter the strength of crowding is the upper-lower visual field anisotropy. Several studies have observed larger performance decrements in the upper than the lower visual field (He, Cavanagh, & Intriligator, 1996; Fortenbaugh, Silver, & Robertson, 2015), along with larger interference zones in the upper field (Petrov & Meleshkevich, 2011a; Greenwood et al, 2017; Kurzawski et al, 2023). This mirrors the more general performance anisotropies seen for tasks ranging from contrast sensitivity to illusory contour perception (Skrandies, 1987; Previc, 1990; Rubin, Nakayama, & Shapley, 1996; Carrasco, Talgar, & Cameron, 2001; Abrams, Nizam, & Carrasco, 2012; Himmelberg, Winawer, & Carrasco, 2023).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The most prominent of these variations is the increase in the magnitude of crowding with eccentricity (Bouma, 1970; Pelli, Palomares, & Majaj, 2004). Performance impairments are also stronger in the upper visual field than the lower, in the left hemifield vs. the right, and along the vertical meridian of the visual field than along the horizontal meridian (Petrov & Meleshkevich, 2011a; Greenwood et al, 2017; Kurzawski et al, 2023). The location of the flankers also matters – those positioned along the radial axis with respect to fixation are more disruptive than those along the iso-eccentric tangential dimension (Kooi, Toet, Tripathy, & Levi, 1994), while more eccentric flankers will also produce greater crowding than flankers closer to fixation (Petrov & Meleshkevich, 2011a).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…The disruption from crowding is not uniform across peripheral vision and varies markedly with the position of both the target and surrounding flanker elements, e.g. increasing as the target moves further into peripheral vision (Bouma, 1970; Pelli, Palomares, & Majaj, 2004) and in the upper vs. lower visual field (Petrov & Meleshkevich, 2011a; Greenwood, Szinte, Sayim, & Cavanagh, 2017; Kurzawski et al, 2023). Although a number of neural substrates have been proposed to explain crowding, most fall short in explaining the full pattern of these variations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A common cortical basis for variations in visual crowding

Greenwood,

Jerotic,

Danter

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Peripheral vision is limited by crowding, the disruptive effect of clutter on object recognition. Crowding varies markedly around the visual field, with e.g. stronger performance decrements in the upper vs. lower visual field. Crowding also changes object appearance – target and flanker objects appear more similar (assimilation) in some instances and dissimilar (repulsion) in others. Here we examined whether these performance and appearance effects co-vary, and in turn whether a common cortical factor could drive all of these effects. Participants judged the orientation of a target Gabor with and without flankers in 3 experiments. The first placed a flanker in either the ipsilateral or (the more cortically distant) contralateral hemifield. Although crowding was observed, flanker location had no effect. We next measured recognition at a range of eccentricities in the upper and lower field, observing that both threshold elevation (performance) and assimilative errors (appearance) were higher in the upper vs. lower field. Similarly, flankers on the radial axis around fixation produced high threshold elevation and assimilation, while tangential flankers gave lower elevation and repulsion errors. This common pattern of variations in performance and appearance is well described by a population-coding model of crowding that varies the weighted combination of target vs. flanker population responses. We further demonstrate that neither the cortical distance between elements nor receptive-field size variations can account for the observed variations. Instead, using a series of models we show that the common factor could bereceptive field overlap– the intermixing of the spatial distribution of target/flanker responses. That is, crowding is strong (with high threshold elevation and assimilation) when the degree of overlap in the spatial distribution of population responses is high, and reduced (with low threshold elevation and repulsion) when these responses are separable.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 87%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A common cortical basis for variations in visual crowding

Greenwood,

Jerotic,

Danter

et al. 2023

Preprint

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“…Crowding is quantified by distance, the minimum center-to-center spacing for target recognition. There are large individual differences in crowding distance even among normally sighted young adults 6-9 .…”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

Human V4 size predicts crowding distance

Kurzawski,

Qiu,

Majaj

et al. 2024

Preprint

Self Cite

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Crowding is the failure to recognize an object due to insufficient spacing, slowing daily tasks such as reading and search. Across 49 observers, we found large variations in psychophysical crowding distance and retinotopic map size. These measures covary, conserving a 1.4-mm cortical crowding distance (threshold object spacing on the cortical surface) in the human V4 map, but not V1-V3, linking the spacing limit of visual recognition to overall V4 size.

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Language-universal and script-specific factors in the recognition of letters in visual crowding: The effects of lexicality, hemifield, and transitional probabilities in a right-to-left script

Shechter,

Medina,

et al. 2024

Cortex

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The Bouma law accounts for crowding in 50 observers

Cited by 17 publications

References 111 publications

A common cortical basis for variations in visual crowding

A common cortical basis for variations in visual crowding

Human V4 size predicts crowding distance

Language-universal and script-specific factors in the recognition of letters in visual crowding: The effects of lexicality, hemifield, and transitional probabilities in a right-to-left script

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