Figure 8.

Orientation demo (Experiment 3). A red dot marks the center of each left flanker. In each row, fixate the plus sign and try to identify the middle object from the set of possible targets shown in the bottom row. In the first row, it is hard to identify the target. In the second row, the center spacing is the same as in the first row, and again, the target is barely identifiable. This spacing is sufficient to barely identify the target. In the third row, the edge spacing is the same as in the first row, but the target is now easy to identify. For rotated lopsided rectangles, equal center spacing preserves crowding, the same as for letters.