The Role Of Perceptual Organization In Crowding Effect

Crowding effect refers to the phenomenon that the recognition of target in the peripheral vision is disturbed by flankers.Previous viewpoints hold that the crowding effect is caused by the incorrect intergration of features in low-level visual processing or the limitation of attention resolution in high-level visual processing.Recent studies have found that crowding effects are not only affected by feature processing,but also by perceptual organization.However,previous studies can not fully prove that perceptual organization affects crowding effect,nor explore the underlying reasons.Many studies have shown that the perceptual object stimulated by perceptual organization can attract object-based attention,so we speculate that the influence of perceptual organization on crowding effect is related to object-based attention.In the peripheral vision,when the flankers is organized,the object-based attention generated can improve the recognition of the target in the object;when the perceptual organization strength of the elements constituting the target is stronger,it is more likely to attract the attention of the object,thus xxweakening the crowding effect.In this study,Gestalt perceptual elements were used as stimuli,and the effects of perceptual organization on crowding effect and the underlying reasons were investigated by combining the crowding effect paradigm with the obj ect-based attention paradigm.In experiment 1,crowding effect paradigm was used to manipulate the presence of perceptual organization by changing the closure,continuation and symmetry between flankers,and to verify whether perceptual organization affected crowding effect;in experiment 2b,the influence of perceptual organization on crowding effect was further studied,and the strength of perceptual organization was manipulated by changing the closure,continuation and symmetry among the elements of target.The repetitive discrimination paradigm was used in Experiment 2a to validate the difference of perceptual organization strength between the two perceptual organization elements used in experiment 2b.In experiment 3,the effects of perceptual objects formed by perceptual organizations on crowding effect were investigated by combining object-based attention paradigm and crowding effect paradigm.The following results were obtained:(1)Perceptual organization can influence crowding effect,and the stronger the perceptual organization,the weaker the crowding effect.(2)The object formed by perceptual organization can attract attention and influence crowding effect.Perceptual object can improve the recognition of in-object target,reduce the recognition ability of out-obj ect target,and show the object advantage effect.This study shows that if the stimuli in the peripheral vision can produce perceptual organization,it will help to attention selection and obj ect recognition,thus reducing the crowding effect.So crowding effect is regulated by perceptual organization,which is related to obj ect-based attention.