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Poster F in Poster Session F: Thursday, August 6, 1:45 – 3:30 pm, Kimmel Center, Shorin & Rosenthal Rooms

Probing the Timescale of Conscious Vision

Richard O'Farrell¹, Clare Press¹, Michael Herzog², Stephen M. Fleming¹; ¹University College London, ²EPFL - EPF Lausanne

Presenter: Richard O'Farrell

How long visual information takes to become consciously accessible remains unknown. Recent work suggests that visual information may be integrated over surprisingly long (400 ms) temporal windows before entering awareness, with important implications for understanding the functions of conscious vision. Given the centrality of these findings for theories of vision and consciousness, here we sought to replicate and extend them. We employed a sequential metacontrast paradigm in which participants report the direction of brief offsets embedded in moving line streams. Across two experiments, we systematically varied the separation of these offsets to precisely sample the hypothesised integration windows. We found clear evidence for extended windows of perceptual integration, peaking around 250-300 ms. Our findings support the view that visual awareness is, under some conditions, a slow process, implying that the functions of conscious vision may go beyond those supporting rapid sensorimotor control.

Topic Area: Computational Models of Vision & Visual Cortex