Effects of Awareness on the Control of Attention

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
Taylor W WebbMichael S A Graziano

Abstract

Previous studies show that it is possible to attend to a stimulus without awareness of it. Whether attention and awareness are independent or have a specific relationship, however, remains debated. Here, we tested three aspects of visual attention with and without awareness of the visual stimulus. Metacontrast masking rendered participants either subjectively aware or not aware of the stimulus. Attention drawn to the stimulus was measured by using the stimulus as a cue in a spatial attention task. We found that attention was drawn to the stimulus regardless of whether or not people were aware of it. However, attention changed significantly in the absence of awareness in at least three ways. First, attention to a task-relevant stimulus was less stable over time. Second, inhibition of return, the automatic suppression of attention to a task-irrelevant stimulus, was reduced. Third, attention was more driven by the luminance contrast of the stimulus. These findings add to the growing information on the behavior of attention with and without awareness. The findings are also consistent with our recently proposed account of the relationship between attention and awareness. In the attention schema theory, awareness is the internal mode...Continue Reading

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Citations

May 22, 2020·Cognitive Neuropsychology·Michael S A Graziano
Nov 17, 2016·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Taylor W WebbMichael S A Graziano
Jan 4, 2017·Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences·Andrew R DykstraAlexander Gutschalk
Jul 22, 2018·The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology : QJEP·Eoin TraversNicholas Shea
Jul 26, 2018·Neuroscience of Consciousness·Jorge MoralesHakwan Lau
Jun 5, 2020·Progress in Neurobiology·Andrew I WiltersonMichael S A Graziano
Jun 24, 2021·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Andrew I WiltersonMichael S A Graziano
Aug 14, 2021·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Andrew I Wilterson, Michael S A Graziano

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