It’s long been understood that cluttered spaces—whether that means a thronging, hubbub-laden office or a messy bedroom—influence how we think, remember, and overall perceive.
Some research has shown that we tend to feel less comfortable in cluttered spaces, possibly because it’s difficult to feel at home, cozy, and secure in a space in which environmental elements are always moving around (we don’t ever fully understand these spaces on a subconscious, “I know where everything is located without looking” level, and that means our brains have to stay alert for information about potential new threats).
It’s also been shown that we feel less in control in cluttered spaces, possibly for the same reason, and that leads to higher incidences of unhealthy behaviors (like snacking and sloth).
New research published in 2024 suggests that clutter may also influence how our brains soak up information due to a concept called “Visual Crowding.”
In this context, Visual Crowding refers to our difficulty homing in on a specific object (or stimulus) when the thing we’re trying to look at is embedded within a visually cluttered environment.
So if I’m trying to look at a specific leaf on a tree full of leaves, I’ll have a harder time focusing on just that one leaf, and thus will also respond more slowly if that leaf begins to fall; my capacity to respond to changes in the thing I’m attempting to focus on is inhibited by all that (leafy) clutter.
Similarly, if I’m trying to identify things in my living room that need to be put away or otherwise cleaned up, I’ll have a harder time focusing on those elements—differentiating them from the things that’re already where they need to be—if there’s a bunch of stuff all over the place.
Interestingly, this type of crowding is different depending on where in our visual range the objects on which we’re keen to focus are located.
We have a harder time identifying things that are on the furthest edges of our line of sight, but we also have more trouble dealing with crowding in the upper quadrants of our visual range than in the lower quadrants. And if we’re attempting to focus on something that’s moving, we’ll tend to have a harder time distinguishing it from other elements if those elements are ahead of the moving thing, leading it, rather than following behind it.
Crowding also impacts our capacity to note changes in the things we see: so if there’s more going on around the thing we’re looking at, that thing can change without us noticing because our information-gleaning capabilities are hampered by all the visual clutter.
All of which suggests that our capacity to visually focus—and more vitally, to glean accurate information about the things we’re focusing on—is distorted by the context of those things.
This has relevance to our memories, as there’s a good chance a lot of what we think we remember has been influenced by this biasing of the visual information we soak up, and it also gestures at the possibility that enforcing more control over relatively chaotic environments can make it easier for us to more consistently take in unbiased, accurate information in situations where doing so is especially important.