Rescuing stimuli from invisibility: Inducing a momentary release from visual masking with pre-target entrainment |
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| Authors: | Kyle E. Mathewson Monica Fabiani Gabriele Gratton Diane M. Beck Alejandro Lleras |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore;2. Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore;3. Experimental Psychology Lab, Department of Psychology, Center for Excellence ‘Hearing4all’, European Medical School, Carl von Ossietzky University, Oldenburg, Germany;4. Duke/NUS Graduate Medical School, Singapore, Singapore;5. LSI Neurobiology/Ageing Programme, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore;1. The Sheryl and Daniel R. Tishman Cognitive Neurophysiology Laboratory, Children''s Evaluation and Rehabilitation Center, Department of Pediatrics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY 10461, USA;2. Department of Neuroscience, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY 10461, USA;3. The Cognitive Neurophysiology Laboratory, Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research, 140 Old Orangeburg Road, Orangeburg, NY 10962, USA;4. Department of Neurological Surgery, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York Presbyterian Hospital, New York, NY 10021, USA |
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| Abstract: | At near-threshold levels of stimulation, identical stimulus parameters can result in very different phenomenal experiences. Can we manipulate which stimuli reach consciousness? Here we show that consciousness of otherwise masked stimuli can be experimentally induced by sensory entrainment. We preceded a backward-masked stimulus with a series of rapid visual events presented at 12 Hz for 800 ms. Peaks in visual sensitivity (d′) were observed when the target appeared at the time that the next entraining stimuli would have occurred. Observers’ sensitivity for identical masked near-threshold stimuli increased by factors as large as 55%, but only at this precise moment in time. These data thus reveal that awareness of near-threshold stimuli can be manipulated by entrainment to rhythmic events, supporting the functional role of induced oscillations in underlying cortical excitability, and suggest a plausible mechanism of temporal attention. |
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