title: Contingent aftereffects distinguish conscious and preconscious color processing.
abstract: The brain can process input without perception, but what distinguishes conscious from preconscious processing? Using aftereffects induced by quickly alternating images, we show that cortical mechanisms track color much faster than perception, responding well to color alternations that are too rapid to be perceptible. The more restricted frequency response of the conscious perception of color suggests that extra integrative steps give conscious color perception a time course substantially slower than that of early cortical mechanisms.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California 92092-0109, USA. evul@mit.edu
authors.forename: Edward
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Vul
authors.forename: Donald I A
authors.initials: DI
authors.lastname: MacLeod
mesh_terms: D003116:Color; D003118:Color Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D003243:Consciousness / Q000502:physiology*; D005366:Figural Aftereffect / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D009949:Orientation / Q000502:physiology; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011601:Psychophysics / Q000379:methods; D013997:Time Factors; D014473:Unconscious, Psychology