Paffen Chris L E, Gayet Surya, Heilbron Micha, Van der Stigchel Stefan
Experimental Psychology & Helmholtz Institute, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands.
Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior, Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
J Vis. 2018 Mar 1;18(3):7. doi: 10.1167/18.3.7.
Visual information that is relevant for an observer gains prioritized access to awareness (Gayet, Van der Stigchel, & Paffen, 2014). Here we investigate whether information that was relevant for an extended duration is prioritized for access to awareness when it is no longer relevant. We applied a perceptual-learning paradigm, in which observers were trained for 3 days on a speed-discrimination task. This task used a stimulus consisting of two motion directions, of which one was relevant to the task and one irrelevant. Before and after training, we applied a motion-coherence task to validate whether perceptual learning took place, and a breaking continuous flash-suppression (b-CFS) paradigm to assess how training affected access to awareness. The results reveal that motion-coherence thresholds for the task-relevant motion direction selectively decreased after compared to before training, revealing that task-relevant perceptual learning took place. The results of the b-CFS task, however, reveal that access to awareness was not affected by task-relevant learning: Instead, detection times for motion undergoing CFS decreased, irrespective of its direction, after compared to before training. A follow-up experiment showed that the time to detect visual motion also decreased after 3 days without training, revealing that perceptual learning did not cause the general decrease in detection times. The latter is in line with results by Mastropasqua, Tse, and Turatto (2015) and has important consequences for studies applying b-CFS to assess access to awareness: Studies that intend to apply measurements involving b-CFS on different testing days should consider that breakthrough times will dramatically decrease from pre- to postmeasurement.
与观察者相关的视觉信息能够优先进入意识（盖耶、范德施蒂歇尔和帕芬，2014年）。在此，我们研究当持续一段时间相关的信息不再相关时，其进入意识的过程是否仍被优先对待。我们采用了一种知觉学习范式，让观察者在速度辨别任务上进行为期3天的训练。该任务使用的刺激由两个运动方向组成，其中一个与任务相关，另一个无关。在训练前后，我们运用运动连贯性任务来验证是否发生了知觉学习，并采用打破连续闪烁抑制（b-CFS）范式来评估训练如何影响意识的进入。结果显示，与训练前相比，任务相关运动方向的运动连贯性阈值有选择性地降低，这表明发生了与任务相关的知觉学习。然而，b-CFS任务的结果显示，意识的进入不受与任务相关学习的影响：相反，与训练前相比，经历CFS的运动的检测时间缩短了，无论其方向如何。一项后续实验表明，在未经训练的3天后，检测视觉运动的时间也缩短了，这表明知觉学习并非导致检测时间普遍缩短的原因。后者与马斯托帕斯卡、谢和图拉托（2015年）的结果一致，这对于应用b-CFS来评估意识进入的研究具有重要意义：那些打算在不同测试日应用涉及b-CFS测量的研究应考虑到，从测量前到测量后，突破时间将大幅缩短。
