Working memory can enhance unconscious visual perception.
We demonstrate that unconscious processing of a stimulus property can be enhanced when there is a match between the contents of working memory and the stimulus presented in the visual field. Participants first held a cue (a colored circle) in working memory and then searched for a brief masked target shape presented simultaneously with a distractor shape. When participants reported having no awareness of the target shape at all, search performance was more accurate in the valid condition, where the target matched the cue in color, than in the neutral condition, where the target mismatched the cue. This effect cannot be attributed to bottom-up perceptual priming from the presentation of a memory cue, because unconscious perception was not enhanced when the cue was merely perceptually identified but not actively held in working memory. These findings suggest that reentrant feedback from the contents of working memory modulates unconscious visual perception.
Department of Psychology, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou 310036, China. panyirich@zju.edu.cn
Yi
Y
Pan
Qiu-Ping
QP
Cheng
Qian-Ying
QY
Luo
D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001364:Awareness / Q000502:physiology*; D003463:Cues; D005556:Form Perception / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult