Abstract
Unconscious processing of subliminal visual information, as illustrated by the above-chance accuracy in discriminating invisible visual stimuli, is evident in both blindsight patients and healthy human observers. However, the dependence of such unconscious processing on stimulus properties remains unclear. Here we studied the impact of stimulus luminance and stimulus complexity on the extent of unconscious processing. A testing stimulus presented to one eye was rendered invisible by a masking stimulus presented to the other eye, and healthy human participants made a forced-choice discrimination of the stimulus identity followed by a report of the perceptual awareness. Without awareness of the stimulus existence, participants could nevertheless reach above-chance accuracy in discriminating the stimulus identity. Importantly, the discrimination accuracy for invisible stimuli increased with the stimulus luminance and decreased with the stimulus complexity. These findings suggested that the input signal strength and the input signal complexity can affect the extent of unconscious processing without altering the subjective awareness.
Highlights
Unconscious processing of subliminal visual information, as illustrated by the above-chance accuracy in discriminating invisible visual stimuli, is evident in both blindsight patients and healthy human observers
A testing stimulus presented to one eye was rendered invisible by a masking stimulus presented to the other eye, and healthy human participants made a forced-choice discrimination of the stimulus identity followed by a report of the perceptual awareness
We performed a three-way analysis of variance test (ANOVA) with the stimulus visibility, the stimulus luminance, and the stimulus complexity as three factors-of-interest
Summary
Unconscious processing of subliminal visual information, as illustrated by the above-chance accuracy in discriminating invisible visual stimuli, is evident in both blindsight patients and healthy human observers. The discrimination accuracy for invisible stimuli increased with the stimulus luminance and decreased with the stimulus complexity These findings suggested that the input signal strength and the input signal complexity can affect the extent of unconscious processing without altering the subjective awareness. This unconscious processing of subliminal visual information is evident in healthy human observers, where visual stimuli rendered invisible can be discriminated at above-chance accuracy[9] Despite these established dissociations between perceptual awareness and correct discrimination of visual stimuli, it remains unclear how the unconscious processing of invisible visual stimuli is dependent on the stimulus properties. The strength and the complexity of the signal carrying subliminal visual information can affect the extent of unconscious processing without altering the subjective awareness
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