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Crowding or Surround Suppression with a Hybrid Stimulus-Task Combination?

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Advances in Computational Science and Computing (ISCSC 2018 2018)

Part of the book series: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing ((AISC,volume 877))

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Abstract

Both crowding and surround suppression result in fuzzy visual patterns, yet they have been treated as different phenomena because they vary in some properties. For example, an inward-outward asymmetry of masking is a hallmark of crowding but does not appear in surround suppression. Studies on surround suppression and crowding usually employ different stimulus patterns and tasks, and it is unclear whether the discrepancies between them derive from the different stimulus patterns, the different tasks, or whether they are just different phenomena. A hybrid of stimulus pattern (large surround annuli, usually used in surround suppression) and task (discrimination task, usually used in crowding studies) was used in a fine orientation discrimination task, with the inward-outward asymmetry as a “critical test” indicator. The results showed that whereas some observers showed no inward-outward asymmetry, others showed such an asymmetry. Intriguingly, this asymmetry was in the direction opposite to that commonly reported. Together, the results cannot be wholly predicted by either surround suppression or crowding, and might reveal a new mechanism because of our particular combination of task and stimulus pattern.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, China

    Mingliang Gong

  2. Department of Psychology, Miami University, Oxford, OH, USA

    Mingliang Gong & Lynn A. Olzak

Authors
  1. Mingliang Gong
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  2. Lynn A. Olzak
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Correspondence to Mingliang Gong .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Intelligent Future Technologies, Mälardalen University, Västerås, Sweden

    Ning Xiong

  2. School of Information Science and Technology, Hunan University, Changsha, Hunan, China

    Zheng Xiao

  3. School of Computer Science, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, Hunan, China

    Zhao Tong

  4. Hunan University of Chinese Medicine, School of Computer Science, Changsha, Hunan, China

    Jiayi Du

  5. School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

    Lipo Wang

  6. Design and Physical Sciences Brunel, Electronic and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UK

    Maozhen Li

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Gong, M., Olzak, L.A. (2019). Crowding or Surround Suppression with a Hybrid Stimulus-Task Combination?. In: Xiong, N., Xiao, Z., Tong, Z., Du, J., Wang, L., Li, M. (eds) Advances in Computational Science and Computing. ISCSC 2018 2018. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 877. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02116-0_1

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