A late-stage neural signature of visual awareness in the no-report inattentional blindness paradigm.
Journal of Experimental Psychology General April 30, 2026 Aixin Liu, Minran Chen, Song Zhao et al.
A late bilateral occipital positivity in the brain's electrical activity appears to be a potential marker of conscious perception, but its reliability depends on stimulus complexity. Using a no-report inattentional blindness paradigm across three experiments, high-level, real-life object drawings (car and bell) consistently evoked this late ERP component following conscious perception, whereas low-level geometric drawings (square) did so less reliably. The findings suggest that the neural dynamics of consciousness unfold as a multistage process, with early perceptual awareness followed by later, content-specific processing, and that stimulus complexity modulates the elicitation of this late-stage neural activity.