title: Invisibility and interpretation.
abstract: Invisibility is often thought to occur because of the low-level limitations of the visual system. For example, it is often assumed that backward masking renders a target invisible because the visual system is simply too slow to resolve the target and the mask separately. Here, we propose an alternative explanation in which invisibility is a goal rather than a limitation and occurs naturally when making sense out of the plethora of incoming information. For example, we present evidence that (in)visibility of an element can strongly depend on how it groups with other elements. Changing grouping changes visibility. In addition, we will show that features often just appear to be invisible but are in fact visible in a way the experimenter is not aware of.
authors.affiliation: Brain Mind Institute, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Michael H
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Herzog
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Aberdeen Aberdeen, UK.
authors.forename: Frouke
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Hermens
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Center for NeuroEngineering and Cognitive Science, University of Houston Houston, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Haluk
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Oğmen
keywords: consciousness; masking; priming; visibility