Neural Mechanisms of Visual Crowding Effect

Abstract

When a target is presented with nearby flankers in the peripheral visual field, it becomes difficult to be identified, which is a phenomenon termed crowding. Studying crowding not only facilitates understanding of object recognition, but also benefits the remedy of macular degeneration, amblyopia and dyslexia. Since the concept of crowding was put forward, researchers have studied it extensively and gained much knowledge. Here, we provide an overview of the advances in this research field, including the properties of crowding, the existing theories and computational models that were proposed to explain the underlying neural mechanisms of crowding and how to alleviate crowding with perceptual learning. Although there has been tremendous growth of this topic, controversies remain. Further studies with elaborate designs and advanced technologies are required to address these controversies.