THE INFLUENCE OF SPATIAL ATTENTION IN THE FIGHT FOR AWARENESS

Abstract

Ever since the outside world is a complex and ambiguous unity of information that our visual perception systems cannot take in completely, we only become aware of a vast subset of this information. Previous research revealed that information that is relevant to is, finds its access into awareness faster compared to more neutral information. In this research, we investigated if this relevance could also be created towards a stimulus with a low intrinsic relevance on itself, but with an appearance on a relevant location in visual space, by making use of spatial attention. We hypothesized that a previously suppressed stimulus is detected faster when its location is attended beforehand. To examine this, we made use of a b-CFS paradigm that appealed upon the non-conscious perception, in combination with a spatial target detection task evoking the use of spatial attention with the help of a cuing paradigm. The results, however, reveal that the use of spatial attention evoked by this experimental setting did not have a significant effect on the detection times of a suppressed stimulus.