Can race enhance perceptual awareness? Evidence from the attentional blink paradigm

Abstract

When two visual targets are presented in a rapid serial visual presentation sequence, people typically demonstrate a brief impairment in subjective awareness for the second visual target, a phenomenon known as the ‘attentional blink. Here we investigated the influence of race as a salient visual cue to modulate this temporary perceptual impairment for faces when shown in a rapid visual presentation sequence. In this experiment, Black and White participants viewed a rapid serial visual stream of distractor images and intact Black and White target faces, which were presented sequentially at varying degrees of temporal lag. When the second visual target was a face of a different race, Black and White participants demonstrated an attenuation of the attentional blink. This finding demonstrates that race can enhance subjective awareness and highlights the importance of race in shaping the initial perceptual experience of faces.