Visual awareness judgments are sensitive to accuracy feedback in stimulus discrimination task.

Abstract

In this study we tested the hypothesis that perceptual awareness judgments are sensitive to the accuracy feedback about previous behaviour. We used a perceptual discrimination task in which participants reported their stimulus awareness. We created two conditions: No-feedback and Feedback (discrimination accuracy feedback was provided at the end of each trial). The results showed that visual awareness judgments are related to the accuracy of current and previous responses. Participants reported lower stimulus awareness for incorrectly versus correctly discriminated stimuli in both conditions; they also reported lower stimulus awareness in trials preceded by incorrect discrimination responses, compared to trials preceded by correct discrimination. This difference was significantly stronger in the Feedback condition. Moreover, in the Feedback condition we also observed larger post-error slowing for PAS ratings. We discuss the relation between the effects of performance monitoring and visual awareness and interpret the results in the context of current theories of consciousness.