Young children's subjective and objective thresholds and emergent processes of visual consciousness using a backward masking task.
Consciousness and Cognition November 1, 2023 R. Watanabe, Y. Moriguchi
Young children aged 5–6 years and adults performed a figure discrimination task while reporting their subjective awareness of a target stimulus (square or diamond) presented at varying durations. Objective accuracy thresholds were larger for children than for adults. Subjective awareness thresholds were also larger for children when using a four-point scale but not a two-point scale. No age differences were found in the emergent process of consciousness, suggesting that the way consciousness arises is similar across ages, though children require longer stimulus exposure to reach the same level of awareness.