Visibility of Brief Images: The Dual-Process Approach

Angry and happy faces perceived without awareness: A comparison with the affective impact of masked famous faces

“…However, after around 300ms, if attention is summoned back to a central location, there is inhibition of responses to a target stimulus in the peripheral cued location. Muller and Rabbitt (1989) broadly agree with these approximate timings while Bachmann (1997) cites 60 -150ms as the optimum cue-totarget SOA to produce attentional orientation leading to facilitation of speed and accuracy of responses to the target. In the present experiment it is quite possible that attention may have returned to the centre, because there was an equal probability of the dot-probe in either visual field.…”

Effects of contrast polarity in paracontrast masking

“…Therefore, these Gabor patches may activate mechanisms based on lateral long-range connections in the visual cortex (Gilbert & Wiesel, 1989;Grin vald, Lieke, Frostig, & Hildesheim, 1994), and these connections may increase the detection threshold of the target stimulus. In contrast, our results, obtained by using a disk-ring stimulus configuration, suggest enhancement mechanisms with a fixed delay (as was suggested by Bachmann, 1988Bachmann, , 1994Bachmann, , 1997 but decreasing effects when spatial separation increases.…”

“…The facilitatory effect of a preceding mask on the visibility of a target can be observed with different types of stimuli (Bachmann, 1988(Bachmann, , 1994(Bachmann, , 1997Foley & Chen, 1999;Georgeson, 1988;Polat & Sagi, 1993Tanaka & Sagi, 1998;Xing & Heeger, 2000). Bachmann (1988Bachmann ( , 1994Bachmann ( , 1997 emphasized the interaction between the signals carried out by nonspecific (e.g., subcortical brain stem and midbrain) pathways and specific (i.e., the retino-geniculo-cortical) afferent pathways.…”

“…Bachmann (1988Bachmann ( , 1994Bachmann ( , 1997 emphasized the interaction between the signals carried out by nonspecific (e.g., subcortical brain stem and midbrain) pathways and specific (i.e., the retino-geniculo-cortical) afferent pathways. He further suggested that the slower nonspecific subcortical activation of a preceding mask modulates the faster specific to precede the target by SOAs of 10-30 msec to obtain optimal suppression of target-induced excitatory activity.…”

Recent models and findings in visual backward masking: A comparison, review, and update

“…For instance, the magnitude of backward masking is affected by perceptual grouping and segmentation (Caputo, 1998;Kurylo, 1997;Wolf, Chun, & Friedman-Hill, 1995) and by deployment ofselective visual attention (Enns & Di Lollo, 1997;Havig, Breitmeyer, & Brown, 1998;Michaels & Turvey, 1979;Ramachandran & Cobb, 1995;Shelley-Tremblay & Mack, 1999). Closely related, backward masking recently has been used to study visual awareness (Bachmann, 1997;Dennett, 1991;Klotz & Neumann, 1999;Klotz & Wolff, 1995;Neumann & Klotz, 1994) and its implications for the controversial field ofsubliminal perception (Duncan, 1985;Holender, 1986;Kihlstrom, 1987;Marcel, 1983). Finally, backward masking has been used to study certain clinical anomalies related to vision and brain function, such as amblyopia (Tytla & Steinbach, 1984), closed head injury (Mattson, Levin, & Breitmeyer, 1994), developmental dyslexia (Williams, LeCluyse, & Bologna, 1990;Williams, Molinet, & LeCluyse, 1989), mania (Green, Nuechterlein, & Mintz, 1994a, 1994b, and schizophrenia (Green, Nuechterlein, & Breitmeyer, 1997;Green, Nuechterlein, Breitmeyer, & Mintz, 1999;Green et aI., I994a, I994b;Merritt & Balogh, 1984;Saccuzzo & Schubert, 1981;Slaghuis & Bakker, 1995).…”