Flank to the left, flank to the right: Testing the modified receptive field hypothesis of letter-specific crowding

Abstract

The present study tested for effects of number of flankers positioned to the left and to the right of target characters as a function of visual field and stimulus type (letters or shapes). On the basis of the modified receptive field hypothesis (Chanceaux & Grainger, 2012), we predicted that the greatest effects of flanker interference would occur for leftward flankers with letter targets in the left visual field. Target letters and simple shape stimuli were briefly presented and accompanied by either 1, 2, or 3 flankers of the same category either to the left or to the right of the target, and in all conditions with a single flanker on the opposite side. Targets were presented in the left or right visual field at a fixed eccentricity, such that targets and flankers always fell into the same visual field. Results showed greatest interference for leftward flankers associated with letter targets in the left visual field, as predicted by the modified receptive field hypothesis.

Keywords:

• Letter strings
• Crowding
• Flanker position
• Letter-specific processing

This research was supported by ERC grant 230313.

Notes

¹ This can be seen as an exaggeration of the typical inward-outward asymmetry that characterises the crowding zone of object identification (Bouma, 1978; Nandy & Tjan, 2012).