Early and late electrophysiological correlates of gradual perceptual awareness in- and outside the Attentional Blink window.

During the attentional blink, when a second target is missed because it appears shortly after a first target, the neural correlates of consciousness are debated. Recording event-related potentials while participants viewed faces as the second target, the study found that the N170, visual awareness negativity, and P3b brain responses all increased for seen compared to unseen faces, regardless of whether the face appeared inside or outside the attentional blink window. These components also scaled linearly with subjective visibility. The results suggest that similar early and late mechanisms of graded perceptual awareness operate both within and outside the attentional blink, across perceptual and post-perceptual processing stages.

Study at a glance

Abstract

There is an ongoing debate on the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) in the attentional blink (AB). Theoretical accounts propose that NCC during the attentional blink occur late in the processing hierarchy and that this quality is specific to the AB. We investigated this question by recording event-related potentials during an AB experiment with faces as T2. We analyzed ERPs to T2 stimuli inside (short lag) and outside (long lag) the AB window after carefully calibrating T2 stimuli to ensure equal visibility ratings across lags. We found that the N170, the visual awareness negativity (VAN), and the P3b showed an increased amplitude for seen compared to unseen face stimuli regardless of stimulus lag and that all these components scale linearly with subjective visibility. These findings suggest similar early and late mechanisms of graded perceptual awareness within and outside the AB across perceptual (N170, VAN) and post-perceptual (P3b) processing stages.