Link to bioRxiv paper: http://biorxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2020.06.07.138412v1?rss=1 Authors: Shechter, A., Yashar, A. Abstract: Crowding, the failure to identify a peripheral item in clutter, is an essential bottleneck in visual information processing. A hallmark characteristic of crowding is the inner-outer asymmetry in which the outer flanker (more eccentric) produces stronger interference than the inner one (closer to the fovea). We tested the contribution of the inner-outer asymmetry to the pattern of crowding errors in a typical radial crowding display in which both flankers are presented simultaneously on the horizontal meridian. In two experiments observers were asked to estimate the orientation of a Gabor target. Instead of the target, observers reported the outer flanker much more frequently than the inner one. When the target was the outer Gabor, crowding was reduced. These findings suggest that orientation crowding reflects source confusion (substitution) between the target and the outer flanker, but not vice versa. Furthermore, when there were four flankers, two on each side of the target, observers misreported the outer flanker adjacent to the target, not the outermost flanker. This finding postulates the role of spatial selection in crowding. Our findings reveal a counterintuitive phenomenon: in a radial arrangement of orientation crowding, within a region of selection, the outer item dominates appearance more than the inner one. Copy rights belong to original authors. Visit the link for more info