A few remarks on "uncrowding" in visual stimuli

Abstract

Visual crowding occurs when a target stimulus is presented along with flanking stimuli. These tend to reduce the visibility of the target. It has been found that adding additional flanking stimuli may reduce the crowding effect. This has been termed "uncrowding". It has previously been demonstrated that interference in the stimuli may have effects similar to visual crowding. Interference takes place in the stimuli and is unrelated to vision. The question is then: Can adding additional flanking stimuli reduce the interference effect of initial flanking stimuli in a manner consistent with uncrowding. The present simple calculations indicate that this is very much a possibility.