Different subjective awareness measures demonstrate the influence of visual identification on perceptual awareness ratings.
We compare four subjective awareness measures in the context of a visual identification task and investigate quantitative differences in terms of scale use and correlation with task performance. We also analyse the effect of identification task decisions on subsequent subjective reports. Results show that awareness ratings strongly predict accuracy for all scale types, although the type of awareness measure may influence the reported level of perceptual awareness. Surprisingly, the overall relationship between awareness ratings and performance was weaker when participants rated their awareness before providing identification responses. Furthermore, the Perceptual Awareness Scale was most exhaustive only when used after the identification task, whereas confidence ratings were most exhaustive when used before the identification task. We conclude that the type of subjective measure applied may influence the reports on visual awareness. We also propose that identification task decisions may affect subsequent awareness ratings.
Consciousness Lab, Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland. Electronic address: michal.wierzchon@uj.edu.pl.
Michał
M
Wierzchoń
Warsaw School of Social Science and Humanities, Faculty in Katowice, Poland.
Borysław
B
Paulewicz
Consciousness Lab, Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland.
Dariusz
D
Asanowicz
School of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, Scotland, United Kingdom.
Bert
B
Timmermans
Consciousness, Cognition and Computation Group, Center for Research in Cognition & Neurosciences, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium.
Axel
A
Cleeremans
D000328:Adult; D001364:Awareness / Q000502:physiology*; D003243:Consciousness / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
Confidence ratings; Consciousness, higher-order theories of consciousness; Feeling of warmth; Perceptual awareness scale; Post-decision wagering; Subjective measures of awareness; Visual identification task