Crowding for faces is determined by visual (not holistic) similarity: Evidence from judgements of eye position

Crowding (the disruption of object recognition in clutter) presents the fundamental limitation on peripheral vision. For simple objects, crowding is strong when target/flanker elements are similar and weak when they differ – a selectivity for target-flanker similarity. In contrast, the identification of upright holistically-processed face stimuli is more strongly impaired by upright than inverted flankers, whereas inverted face-targets are impaired by both – a pattern attributed to an additional stage of crowding selective for “holistic similarity” between faces. We propose instead that crowding is selective for target-flanker similarity in all stimuli, but that this selectivity is obscured by task difficulty with inverted face-targets. Using judgements of horizontal eye-position that are minimally affected by inversion, we find that crowding is strong when target-flanker orientations match and weak when they differ for both upright and inverted face-targets. By increasing task difficulty, we show that this selectivity for target-flanker similarity is obscured even for upright face-targets. We further demonstrate that this selectivity follows differences in the spatial order of facial features, rather than “holistic similarity” per se. There is consequently no need to invoke a distinct stage of holistic crowding for faces – crowding is selective for target-flanker similarity, even with complex stimuli such as faces.