Continuous flash suppression (CFS) is a popular method for suppressing visual stimuli from awareness for relatively long periods. Thus far, this method has only been used for suppressing two-dimensional images presented on screen. We present a novel variant of CFS, termed “real-life” CFS, in which a portion of the actual immediate surroundings of an observer—including three-dimensional, real-life objects—can be rendered unconscious. Our method uses augmented reality goggles to present subjects with CFS masks to the dominant eye, leaving the nondominant eye exposed to the real world. In three experiments we demonstrated that real objects can indeed be suppressed from awareness for several seconds, on average, and that the suppression duration is comparable to that obtained using classic, on-screen CFS. As supplementary information, we further provide an example of experimental code that can be modified for future studies. This technique opens the way to new questions in the study of consciousness and its functions.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.3758/s13428-018-1162-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

How convincing is current evidence for unconscious processing? Recently, a major criticism suggested that this evidence might be fully explained by a mere statistical phenomenon: regression to the mean (RttM). Since excluding participants based on an awareness assessment is a common practice in such studies, this post-hoc data selection might evoke RttM and lead to false effects that are driven by aware participants wrongfully classified as unaware. Here, we examined this criticism using both simulations and data from 15 studies probing unconscious processing (43 effects overall). In line with the original criticism, we confirmed that the reliability of awareness measures in the field is concerningly low. Yet using simulations we showed that reliability measures might be unsuitable for estimating error in awareness measures. Furthermore, we examined three proposed ways to assess whether an effect is genuine or reflects RttM; all suffered from substantial limitations, such as a lack of power or an unjustified linearity assumption. Accordingly, we suggest a new nonparametric solution, which enjoys high sensitivity and relatively high power. Together, this work emphasizes the need to account for the contribution of measurement error to effects of unconscious processing. It further suggests a way to meet the important challenge posed by RttM, in an attempt to establish a reliable and robust corpus of knowledge in studying unconscious processing.

Most of our interactions with our environment involve manipulating real 3D objects. Accordingly, 3D objects seem to enjoy preferential processing compared with 2D images, for example, in capturing attention or being better remembered. But are they also more readily perceived? Thus far, the possibility of preferred detection for real 3D objects could not be empirically tested because suppression from awareness has been applied only to on-screen stimuli. Here, using a variant of continuous flash suppression (CFS) with augmented-reality goggles (“real-life” CFS), we managed to suppress both real 3D objects and their 2D representations. In 20 healthy young adults, real objects broke suppression faster than their photographs. Using 3D printing, we also showed in 50 healthy young adults that this finding held only for meaningful objects, whereas no difference was found for meaningless, novel ones (a similar trend was observed in another experiment with 20 subjects, yet it did not reach significance). This suggests that the effect might be mediated by affordances facilitating detection of 3D objects under interocular suppression.

Most of our interactions with our environment involve manipulating real, 3D objects. Accordingly, 3D objects seem to enjoy preferential processing compared with 2D images, for example in capturing attention or being better remembered. But are they also more readily perceived? Thus far, the possible preferred access of real, 3D objects to awareness could not be empirically tested, as suppression was only applied to on-screen stimuli; Here, using a variant of Continuous Flash Suppression (CFS) with augmented reality goggles (“real-life” CFS), we managed to suppress both real, 3D objects and their 2D representations. In healthy young adults, real objects escaped suppression faster than their photographs. Using 3D printing, we also showed that this only holds for meaningful objects, while no difference was found for meaningless, novel ones. This suggests that the effect is uniquely mediated by affordances, shown here to be evoked by 3D objects even before these emerge to awareness.