Conscious awareness modulates processing speed in the redundant signal effect.

Content Provider	Europe PMC
Author	Cederblad, Anna Matilda Helena Visokomogilski, Aleksandar Andersen, Søren K. MacLeod, Mary-Joan Sahraie, Arash
Abstract	Evidence for the influence of unaware signals on behaviour has been reported in both patient groups and healthy observers using the Redundant Signal Effect (RSE). The RSE refers to faster manual reaction times to the onset of multiple simultaneously presented target than those to a single stimulus. These findings are robust and apply to unimodal and multi-modal sensory inputs. A number of studies on neurologically impaired cases have demonstrated that RSE can be found even in the absence of conscious experience of the redundant signals. Here, we investigated behavioural changes associated with awareness in healthy observers by using Continuous Flash Suppression to render observers unaware of redundant targets. Across three experiments, we found an association between reaction times to the onset of a consciously perceived target and the reported level of visual awareness of the redundant target, with higher awareness being associated with faster reaction times. However, in the absence of any awareness of the redundant target, we found no evidence for speeded reaction times and even weak evidence for an inhibitory effect (slowing down of reaction times) on response to the seen target. These findings reveal marked differences between healthy observers and blindsight patients in how aware and unaware information from different locations is integrated in the RSE.
Related Links	https://europepmc.org/backend/ptpmcrender.fcgi?accid=PMC8277652&blobtype=pdf
ISSN	00144819
Journal	Experimental Brain Research [Exp Brain Res]
Volume Number	239
DOI	10.1007/s00221-020-06008-1
PubMed Central reference number	PMC8277652
Issue Number	6
PubMed reference number	33864488
e-ISSN	14321106
Language	English
Publisher	Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Publisher Date	2021-04-17
Publisher Place	Berlin/Heidelberg
Access Restriction	Open
Rights License	Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. © The Author(s) 2021
Subject Keyword	Redundant Signal Effect Visual awareness Continuous flash suppression
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Neuroscience