• contrast matching
• optimization strategies
• orientation discrimination
• perceptual advantages
• peripheral vision
• pooling
• visual acuity
• visual crowding

Visual acuity differs significantly across central and peripheral visual field, with the fovea providing a high degree of acuity, and peripheral regions which are instead much more poorly represented. A key phenomenon that has a strong impact on object recognition in peripheral vision is "Visual Crowding", where nearby items interfere with each other, worsening perception. However, recent research has shown that particular stimulus configurations could instead improve perceptual performance by reducing errors. To better explore these perceptual advantages, experiments were conducted, so to examine the influence flanker elements in simple visual tasks. The first experiment revealed that the presence of similar flankers increased the perceived contrast of a stimulus, making targets below the visibility threshold, visible. Following experiments showed that a "non-item", i.e., an object not physically present, could take on the characteristics of nearby elements, suggesting that there are processes in peripheral vision, that enhance the perception of surrounding elements, and thus reinforcing the general idea that peripheral information processing could benefit from positive interactions.