Repeating a strongly masked stimulus changes priming and awareness

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Repeating a strongly masked stimulus changes priming and awareness Anne Atas1*, Astrid Vermeiren1 and Axel Cleeremans1 1 Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium Both Marcel (1983) and Wentura & Frings (2005) suggested that repeatedly presenting a masked stimulus improves priming without increasing perceptual awareness. However, neural theories of consciousness predict the opposite: Increasing bottom-up strength in such a paradigm should also result in increasing availability to awareness. Here, we tested this prediction by manipulating the number of repetitions of a strongly masked digit. To explore the role of top-down attention in this accumulation of evidence, we also compared three different task contexts in which the priming trials were performed before, after or concurrently with the visibility trials. Top-down attention to the stream of masked digits was effective only in the third condition. Our results do not replicate the dissociation observed by Marcel and are instead suggestive that repeating an unconscious and attended masked stimulus enables the progressive emergence of perceptual awareness. We also found a facilitative visual influence of the prime, which was co-occurring with an inhibitory motor effect of the prime, independently of the number of prime repetitions. Overall, our study suggests another way to track the development of perceptual awareness, and points out the benefit of separating the visual and the motor processing of the prime when inhibitory mechanisms are involved. Keywords: repeated masking method, Awareness, top-down attention, strongly masked prime, visual facilitation, motor inhibition. Conference: Belgian Brain Council, Liège, Belgium, 27 Oct - 27 Oct, 2012. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Higher Brain Functions in health and disease: cognition and memory Citation: Atas A, Vermeiren A and Cleeremans A (2012). Repeating a strongly masked stimulus changes priming and awareness. Conference Abstract: Belgian Brain Council. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2012.210.00010 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 09 Sep 2012; Published Online: 12 Sep 2012. * Correspondence: Miss. Anne Atas, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Bruxelles, Belgium, experience.anne@gmail.com Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Anne Atas Astrid Vermeiren Axel Cleeremans Google Anne Atas Astrid Vermeiren Axel Cleeremans Google Scholar Anne Atas Astrid Vermeiren Axel Cleeremans PubMed Anne Atas Astrid Vermeiren Axel Cleeremans Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.