Subjective visibility report is facilitated by conscious predictions only

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2020.103048Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • It is debated how predictions affect conscious access and whether predictions need to be conscious to be effective.

  • Effects of conscious and non-conscious predictions on subjective visibility reports were studied.

  • Only consciously initiated predictions were shown to affect subjective visibility reports and conscious access.

  • Predictions may therefore rely on high-level feedback characteristic for conscious access.

Abstract

Predictions in the visual domain have been shown to modulate conscious access. Yet, little is known about how predictions may do so and to what extent they need to be consciously implemented to be effective. To address this, we administered an attentional blink (AB) task in which target 1 (T1) identity predicted target 2 (T2) identity, while participants rated their perceptual awareness of validly versus invalidly predicted T2s (Experiment 1 & 2) or reported T2 identity (Experiment 3). Critically, we tested the effects of conscious and non-conscious predictions, after seen and unseen T1s, on T2 visibility. We found that valid predictions increased subjective visibility reports and discrimination of T2s, but only when predictions were generated by a consciously accessed T1, irrespective of the timing at which the effects were measured (short vs. longs lags). These results further our understanding of the intricate relationship between predictive processing and consciousness.

Keywords

Conscious access
Subjective awareness
Predictions
Non-conscious processing
Attentional blink

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