Expectations accelerate entry of visual stimuli into awareness
Journal of Vision June 26, 2015 Yair Pinto, Simon van Gaal, Floris P. de Lange et al. 177 citations
Expectations speed up conscious perception. In four experiments using predictive cueing and continuous flash suppression, expected images entered awareness faster than neutral or unexpected ones. This effect was not due to response priming, stimulus associations, or attentional timing biases. Top-down expectations had a stronger influence when visual input was ambiguous, consistent with predictive processing accounts. The findings support the idea that conscious access depends on verifying perceptual predictions.