Consciousness of targets during the attentional blink: a gradual or all-or-none dimension?
Models of consciousness differ in whether they predict a gradual change or a discontinuous transition between nonconscious and conscious perception. Sergent and Dehaene (Psychological Science, 15, 720-728, 2004) asked subjects to rate on a continuous scale the subjective visibility of target words presented during an attentional blink. They found that these words were either detected as well as targets outside the attentional-blink period or not detected at all, and interpreted these results as support for a discontinuous transition between nonconscious and conscious processing. We present results from 4 attentional-blink experiments showing that this all-or-none rating pattern disappears with the use of an alternative measure of consciousness (post-decision wagering) and a more difficult identification task. Instead, under these circumstances, subjects used the consciousness rating scales in a continuous fashion. These results are more consistent with models that assume a gradual change between nonconscious and conscious perception during the attentional blink.
Institute of Psychology, Cognitive Psychology Unit, Leiden University, Wassenaarseweg 52, 2333, AK Leiden, The Netherlands. snieuwenhuis@fsw.leidenuniv.nl
Sander
S
Nieuwenhuis
Roy
R
de Kleijn
D054518:Attentional Blink; D001364:Awareness; D003118:Color Perception; D003657:Decision Making; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005403:Fixation, Ocular; D006801:Humans; D009949:Orientation; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D011601:Psychophysics; D011932:Reading; D012660:Semantics
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