On the independence of visual awareness and metacognition: A signal detection theoretic analysis.

Jachs, Barbara; Blanco, Manuel J.; Grantham-Hill, Sarah; Soto, David

doi:10.1037/xhp0000026

Cited by 51 publications

(83 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Unfortunately, most attempts to induce blindsight-like behavior in normal observers -typically using visual masking or other similar techniques --are susceptible to response bias confounds (Charles, King, & Dehaene, 2014;Charles, Van Opstal, Marti, & Dehaene, 2013;Eriksen, 1960;Hannula, Simons, & Cohen, 2005;Jachs et al, 2015;Lloyd, Abrahamyan, & Harris, 2013;Merikle, Smilek, & Eastwood, 2001;Ramsøy & Overgaard, 2004) . Further, past attempts to remedy response bias concerns (Kolb & Braun, 1995;Kunimoto, Miller, & Pashler, 2001) have met with their own conceptual or replicability challenges (Evans & Azzopardi, 2007;Galvin, Podd, Drga, & Whitmore, 2003;Morgan, Mason, & Solomon, 1997;Robichaud & Stelmach, 2003) .…”

Section: Normal Observers Show No Evidence For Blindsight In Facial Ementioning

confidence: 99%

Normal observers show no evidence for blindsight in facial emotion perception

Rajananda

Zhu

Peters

2018

Preprint

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It is commonly assumed that normal human observers can exhibit 'blindsight-like' behavior: the ability to discriminate or identify a stimulus without being aware of it. However, we recently used a bias-free task to show that what looks like blindsight may in fact be an artifact of typical experimental paradigms' susceptibility to response bias. While those findings challenge many previous reports of blindsight in normal observers, they do not rule out the possibility that different stimuli or techniques could reveal such perception without awareness. One particularly intriguing candidate for this unconscious perception is emotion processing, as processing of emotional stimuli (e.g. fearful/happy faces) has been reported to potentially bypass conscious visual circuits. Here we used the bias-free blindsight paradigm to investigate whether emotion processing might reveal 'featural blindsight', i.e. the ability to identify a face's emotion without having introspective access to the task-relevant features of the face that led to the discrimination decision. However, despite the purported ability of emotional stimuli to bypass conscious visual processing, we saw no evidence for such emotion processing 'featural blindsight': like in our previous study, as soon as participants could identify a face's emotion they reported introspective access to the task-relevant features, matching predictions of a Bayesian ideal observer. The present results challenge dominant theory, adding to the growing body of evidence that perceptual discrimination ability in the complete absence of introspective access may not be possible for neurologically intact observers.

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Section: Normal Observers Show No Evidence For Blindsight In Facial Ementioning

confidence: 99%

Normal observers show no evidence for blindsight in facial emotion perception

Rajananda

Zhu

Peters

2018

Preprint

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“…Hence, the results are in keeping with the proposal that metacognitive confidence and visual awareness can be dissociated (see also 21 ) and with the view that higher-order cognitive processes are to some extent dissociable from conscious experience. 11,22,23 Most important for the aims of the present study, we observed that the current prospective belief of performance success could be predicted based on the pattern of visual awareness, task-confidence, and task-correctness, notably from several trials back. The prediction of this belief was strongest considering information from the most recent previous trial, with classification performance decreasing with longer time windows.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 60%

“…Most critically, previous research indicates that d' and meta-d' can be sensitive to different factors. For instance, using a similar paradigm to the one used in this study, we have previously shown that visibility has a strong effect on d' but not on meta-d', 11 indicating that meta-d' and d' are not necessarily based on a similar process, or operate on a similar type of information (see also 21 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 69%

“…Previous studies using a similar paradigm indicated that observers can display metacognitive sensitivity in both aware and unaware trials. 11,12 Prior to the experimental trials, there was a second calibration of the luminance of the Gabor starting with the luminance value from the first calibration. Each participant then completed 12 blocks of 50 trials (600 in total), with breaks between each block.…”

Section: Experimental Task and Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Following the presentation of the Gabor, participants rated their visual awareness, responded to its orientation and rated their confidence in the orientation response. 11,12 Using standard machine learning algorithms, we sought to predict these seemingly different prospective decisions using information from previous trials concerning of awareness, task-confidence, and task-accuracy. We also evaluated the relative importance of these factors for prospective judgements using the coefficients from logistic regression.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Similar history biases for distinct prospective decisions of self-performance

Mei¹,

Olafsson

Rankine

et al. 2019

Preprint

Self Cite

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AbstractMetacognition can be deployed retrospectively -to reflect on the correctness of our behavior- or prospectively -to make predictions of success in one’s future behavior or make decisions about strategies to solve future problems. We investigated the factors that determine prospective decision making. Human participants performed a visual discrimination task followed by ratings of visibility and response confidence. Prior to each trial, participants made prospective judgments. In Experiment 1, they rated their belief of future success. In Experiment 2, they rated their decision to adopt a focused attention state. Prospective beliefs of success were associated with no performance changes while prospective decisions to engage attention were followed by better self-evaluation of the correctness of behavioral responses. Using standard machine learning classifiers we found that the current prospective decision could be predicted from information concerning task-correctness, stimulus visibility and response confidence from previous trials. In both Experiments, awareness and confidence were more diagnostic of the prospective decision than task correctness. Notably, classifiers trained with prospective beliefs of success in Experiment 1 predicted decisions to engage in Experiment 2 and vice-versa. These results indicate that the formation of these seemingly different prospective decisions share a common, dynamic representational structure.

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Confidence in consciousness research

Michel

2022

WIRES Cognitive Science

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To study (un)conscious perception and test hypotheses about consciousness, researchers need procedures for determining whether subjects consciously perceive stimuli or not. This article is an introduction to a family of procedures called 'confidence-based procedures', which consist in interpreting metacognitive indicators as indicators of consciousness. I assess the validity and accuracy of these procedures, and answer a series of common objections to their use in consciousness research. I conclude that confidence-based procedures are valid for assessing consciousness, and, in most cases, accurate enough for our practical and scientific purposes.

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On the independence of visual awareness and metacognition: A signal detection theoretic analysis.

Cited by 51 publications

References 30 publications

Normal observers show no evidence for blindsight in facial emotion perception

Normal observers show no evidence for blindsight in facial emotion perception

Similar history biases for distinct prospective decisions of self-performance

Confidence in consciousness research

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