Conscious access in the near absence of attention: critical extensions on the dual-task paradigm
Open accessAbstract
Whether conscious perception requires attention remains a topic of intense debate. While certain complex stimuli such as faces and animals can be discriminated outside the focus of spatial attention, many simpler stimuli cannot. Because such evidence was obtained in dual-task paradigms involving no measure of subjective insight, it remains unclear whether accurate discrimination of unattended complex stimuli is the product of automatic, unconscious processing, as in blindsight, or is accessible to consciousness. Furthermore, these paradigms typically require extensive training over many hours, bringing into question whether this phenomenon can be achieved in naive subjects. We developed a novel dual-task paradigm incorporating confidence ratings to calculate metacognition and adaptive staircase procedures to reduce training. With minimal training, subjects were able to discriminate face-gender in the near absence of top–down attentional amplification, while also displaying above-chance metacognitive accuracy. By contrast, the discrimination of simple coloured discs was significantly impaired and metacognitive accuracy dropped to chance-level, even in a partial-report condition. In a final experiment, we used blended face/disc stimuli and confirmed that face-gender but not colour orientation can be discriminated in the dual task. Our results show direct evidence for metacognitive conscious access in the near absence of attention for complex, but not simple, stimuli. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Perceptual consciousness and cognitive access'.
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Information is encoded automatically whether or not the details are attended to.
“and thus information is encoded automatically whether or not the details are attended to [154].”
From Is episodic-like memory <i>like</i> episodic memory? (2024) · cites this paper as [154]
Recent evidence demonstrates that humans have conscious access to incidentally encoded information within memories and can target this information in order to solve memory tasks.
“recent evidence demonstrates that humans have conscious access to incidentally encoded information within memories and can target this information in order to solve memory tasks [154,177–179].”
From Is episodic-like memory <i>like</i> episodic memory? (2024) · cites this paper as [154]
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Self-citationOn the minimal theory of consciousness implicit in active inference
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- Authors
- Matthews, J., Schröder, P., Kaunitz, L., van Boxtel, J. J. A., & Tsuchiya, N.
- Affiliations
- Monash University (AU)
- School of Psychological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3800, Australia
- Corresponding author
- Matthews, Julian
- Tsuchiya, Naotsugu
- Venue
- Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
- Publisher
- The Royal Society
- Published
- 2018-07-30
- Volume
- 373
- Issue
- 1755
- Pages
- 20170352
- ISSN
- 0962-8436 (ISSN-L)
- 1471-2970
- PMC
- PMC6074075
- OpenAlex
- W2750169413
- Cited by
- 64
- References
- 82
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 20 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 1
- FWCI
- 4.76
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Precursory Research for Embryonic Science and Technology (3630)
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (P15048)
- Australian Research Council (DP130100194, FT120100619)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Philosophy and Theoretical Science
- Keywords
- conscious perception, attention, dual-task paradigm, metacognition, metacognitive accuracy, top-down attention, blindsight, unconscious processes, confidence ratings, perceptual consciousness
- MeSH terms
- Metacognition, Adult, Attention, Consciousness, Female, Humans, Male, Visual Perception, Young Adult
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