Decision Making Regarding Conscious and Nonconscious Perception in Detection and Discrimination Tasks

Abstract

A study was done of decision making in simple psychophysical tasks of detection and discrimination. The experiments showed that it is possible to discriminate stimuli in a nondiscrimination zone and for different threshold values to exist for identical stimuli simultaneously. Any signal under the appropriate conditions can exceed the threshold and be consciously perceived or, conversely, recede into the subthreshold zone of nondiscrimination. The threshold of conscious perception of a signal plays a highly important role in the regulation of signal detection and discrimination processes.Notwithstanding the fact that research on threshold phenomena has been going on for more than a century already, scholars have yet to arrive at a consensus regarding thresholds. This article is an attempt to propose a possible solution to the problem.The prevailing view today is that the magnitude of the stimulus that generates sensations in an observer characterizes not the capabilities of the sensory system but rather the level to which the system is attuned at that moment. Nevertheless, the general notion persists that the threshold of perception is