Facing pairs of human heads gain privileged access to conscious awareness compared to nonfacing pairs, even when presented outside awareness. Eleven experiments using a breaking continuous flash suppression paradigm showed that two human faces facing each other broke into awareness faster than nonfacing pairs. This advantage could not be explained by low-level or mid-level visual features. Disrupting holistic processing of the two agents significantly reduced the facing advantage. The effect was specific to human agents and did not occur with daily objects, directional arrows, or nonhuman animals. These results suggest that social information, specifically the facingness between two individuals, can be integrated unconsciously and influences what reaches conscious awareness.
The experience of seeing a rich, detailed visual world upon opening one's eyes contrasts with the limited amount of information that can actually be reported. This dissociation fuels a debate about visual consciousness: the overflow argument holds that conscious experience is far richer than what can be reported, while the no-overflow argument contends that visual consciousness is impoverished and limited to reportable content. This review systematically examines evidence for the overflow argument from iconic memory paradigms, divided attention studies, and neural correlates of consciousness, alongside critical objections and counterevidence. The authors also present their recent studies on attribute amnesia, which they suggest offers new insight into the overflow view.