Chinese-reading Expertise Modulates the Crowding Effect of Chinese Characters on Face Categorization

Crowding refers to the inability to recognize an object in peripheral vision when other objects are presented nearby. Studies have shown that crowding can be influenced by both low-level visual features and high-level object representations. In the current study, we tested how visual expertise affects crowding. We had native Chinese and non-Chinese readers perform a gender categorization task, in which they categorized target faces flanked by faces or Chinese characters that were presented upright or inverted. The results showed an effect of target-flanker similarity on crowding, as all participants performed worse when target faces were crowded by face compared to Chinese character flankers. The results also showed that native Chinese readers, but not non-Chinese readers, experienced more crowding when target faces were surrounded by upright compared to inverted face or Chinese character flankers, suggesting that participants’ visual expertise with the flanking stimuli along with their perceptual processing style shaped by cultures play an influential role in modulating the crowding effect. Our results support recent research showing that crowding is susceptible to both low- and high-level visual information.