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Processing of subjectively and objectively invisible stimuli in human visual cortex

View ORCID ProfileTimo Stein, Daniel Kaiser, View ORCID ProfileJohannes J. Fahrenfort, Simon van Gaal
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.11.11.376681
Timo Stein
1Brain and Cognition, Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
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  • For correspondence: timo@timostein.de
Daniel Kaiser
2Department of Psychology, University of York, United Kingdom
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Johannes J. Fahrenfort
1Brain and Cognition, Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
3Cognitive Psychology, Department of Experimental and Applied Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands
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Simon van Gaal
1Brain and Cognition, Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
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Abstract

The study of unconscious processing requires a measure of conscious awareness. Awareness measures can be either subjective (based on participant’s report) or objective (based on perceptual performance). The preferred awareness measure depends on the theoretical position about consciousness, and may influence conclusions about the extent of unconscious processing and about the neural correlates of consciousness. We obtained fMRI measurements from 43 subjects while they viewed masked faces and houses that were either subjectively or objectively invisible. We show that neural representations of objectively invisible faces and houses are limited to visual (shape-related) object properties, while subjectively invisible stimuli are processed up to more abstract, categorical levels of representation. These results demonstrate that the hypothesized extent of unconscious information processing is determined by the measurement approach. Furthermore, our data show that subjective and objective approaches are associated with different neural correlates of consciousness and thus have implications for neural theories of consciousness.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted November 11, 2020.
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Processing of subjectively and objectively invisible stimuli in human visual cortex
Timo Stein, Daniel Kaiser, Johannes J. Fahrenfort, Simon van Gaal
bioRxiv 2020.11.11.376681; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.11.11.376681
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Processing of subjectively and objectively invisible stimuli in human visual cortex
Timo Stein, Daniel Kaiser, Johannes J. Fahrenfort, Simon van Gaal
bioRxiv 2020.11.11.376681; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.11.11.376681

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