Replicating the unconscious working memory effect: a multisite Registered Report.
Neuroscience of consciousness January 1, 2026 Alicia Franco-Martínez, Ricardo Rey-Sáez, Jesús Adrián-ventura et al. 1 citation
Working memory may operate on unconscious perceptual contents, though it remains linked to conscious perception. A large, multisite replication (19 labs, 531 participants, 720 trials) of Soto et al. (2011) found above-chance accuracy (.55) on a visual discrimination task when participants reported not seeing the subliminal Gabor grating. Performance correlated positively with cue detection sensitivity (r = .228), and the regression intercept was significantly above chance (β₀ = .521). The study provides an open-access dataset and confirms that measures were reliable and valid, supporting the existence of unconscious working memory.