Visual crowding cannot be wholly explained by feature pooling.

摘要: Visual perception is dramatically impaired when a peripheral target embedded within clutter, phenomenon known as visual crowding. Despite decades of study, the mechanisms underlying crowding remain matter debate. Feature pooling models assert that results from compulsory (e.g., averaging) and distractor features. This view has been extraordinarily influential in recent years, so much typically regarded synonymous with pooling. However, many demonstrations feature can also be accommodated by probabilistic substitution model where observers occasionally report target. Here, we directly compared using an analytical approach sensitive to both alternatives. In four experiments, asked precise orientation stimulus flanked two irrelevant distractors. all cases, observed data were well described quantitative assumes substitution, poorly targets distractors are averaged. These challenge widely held assumption wholly explained