Breaking continuous flash suppression: competing for consciousness on the pre-semantic battlefield

Abstract

Traditionally, interocular suppression is believed to disrupt high-level (i.e., semantic or conceptual) processing of the suppressed visual input. The development of a new experimental paradigm, breaking continuous flash suppression (b-CFS), has caused a resurgence of studies demonstrating high-level processing of visual information in the absence of visual awareness. In this method the time it takes for interocularly suppressed stimuli to breach the threshold of visibility, is regarded as a measure of access to awareness. The aim of the current review is twofold. First, we provide an overview of the literature using this b-CFS method, while making a distinction between two types of studies: those in which suppression durations are compared between different stimulus classes (such as upright faces versus inverted faces), and those in which suppression durations are compared for stimuli that either match or mismatch concurrently available information (such as a colored target that either matches or mismatches a color retained in working memory). Second, we aim at dissociating high-level processing from low-level (i.e., crude visual) processing of the suppressed stimuli. For this purpose, we include a thorough review of the control conditions that are used in these experiments. Additionally, we provide recommendations for proper control conditions that we deem crucial for disentangling high-level from low-level effects. Based on this review, we argue that crude visual processing suffices for explaining differences in breakthrough times reported using b-CFS. As such, we conclude that there is as yet no reason to assume that interocularly suppressed stimuli receive full semantic analysis.

No evidence for surface organization in Kanizsa configurations during continuous flash suppression

“…That is, our results fail to provide evidence that, during CFS, traditional pacmen stimuli can induce figure-ground processes that might lead to a differential effect for stimuli able to induce a surface percept. This observation is consistent with a broader set of recent studies focusing on the extent to which mid-and high-level stimuli are represented during CFS (Faivre & Koch, 2014;Gayet, Van Der Stigchel, & Paffen, 2014;Hedger, Adams, & Garner, 2015;Hesselmann & Knops, 2014;Hesselmann & Moors, 2015;Heyman & Moors, 2014;Moors, Huygelier, Wagemans, de-Wit, & van Ee, 2015). That is, there is converging evidence that suppressed stimuli are processed to a limited extent during CFS and that any process that requires complex integration of several features of the suppressed stimulus is unlikely to take place.…”

Gaze Direction Modulates the Relation between Neural Responses to Faces and Visual Awareness

“…To assess the strength of the evidence for the null hypothesis, as a nonsignificant t test result cannot provide unequivocal evidence in favor of the null hypothesis, we also performed a Bayes analysis (Dienes, 2011;Sterzer et al, 2014). This gives the likelihood of the data given the null hypothesis and the likelihood of the data given the alternative hypothesis and their quotient, the Bayes factor, as an output.…”

“…This gives the likelihood of the data given the null hypothesis and the likelihood of the data given the alternative hypothesis and their quotient, the Bayes factor, as an output. Bayes factors Ͻ0.33 provide substantial evidence for the null over the alternative hypothesis, whereas Bayes factors Ͼ3 can be interpreted as evidence for the alternative over the null hypothesis (Dienes, 2011). The analysis was performed using an online Bayes calculator (http://www.lifesci.sussex.ac.uk/home/ Zoltan_Dienes/inference/bayes_factor.swf).…”

Visual Directional Anisotropy Does Not Mirror the Directional Anisotropy Apparent in Postural Sway

“…Observers were instructed to press the right arrow as soon as they perceived dots of the radial optic flow pattern, translation, or random motion stimulus. Experience with the stimuli may facilitate the detection of these stimuli (Gayet, van der Stigchel, & Paffen, 2014). Hence, observers performed some practice trials before the start of the experiment to determine whether the dot luminance of the first experiment had to be decreased, so that dots did not break through suppression immediately after stimulus onset.…”