Abstract
Crowding as context: Analytical and methodological strategies. Crowding can be studied theoretically and methodologically as a focal subject matter or as a background stimuli. One of the advantages of their study as a background stimuli is that other focal behavioral processes, like social interactions which can be influenced by "crowding", could be studied analyzing the contributions of group and spatial density. As a strategical point of departure, we propone a model for the observational study of the individual and institutional influences of "crowding". In this strategy we consider as a focal subject matter, one special kind of social interaction regarding the main contemporary models in crowding: Social interference. The flexible observational designs guide lines for the strategy are discussed, where the field formats records are the nucleus of the proposal. Several options for the record's optimization and for the data analysis are revisited.
