Using virtual reality to induce multi-trial inattentional blindness despite trial-by-trial measures of awareness

Sensitivity to visual features in inattentional blindness

The relation between attention, perception, and awareness is among the most fundamental problems in the science of the mind. One of the most striking and well-known phenomena bearing on this question is inattentional blindness (IB). In IB, naive observers fail to report clearly visible stimuli when their attention is otherwise engaged-famously missing a gorilla parading before their eyes. IB carries tremendous significance, both as evidence that awareness requires attention and as a tool in seeking the neural correlates of consciousness. However, such implications rest on a notoriously biased measure: asking participants whether they noticed anything unusual (and interpreting negative answers as reflecting a complete lack of perception). Here, in the largest ever set of IB studies, we show that, as a group, inattentionally blind participants can successfully report the location, color, and shape of stimuli they deny noticing, demonstrating that perceptual information remains accessible in IB. By introducing absent trials, we further show that observers are collectively biased to report not noticing in IB-essentially 'playing it safe' in reporting their sensitivity. These data provide the strongest evidence to date of significant residual visual sensitivity in IB. They also challenge the use of inattentional blindness to argue that awareness requires attention.

Taking consciousness for real: Increasing the ecological validity of the study of conscious vs. unconscious processes

The study of consciousness has developed well-controlled, rigorous methods for manipulating and measuring consciousness. Yet, in the process, experimental paradigms grew farther away from everyday conscious and unconscious processes, which raises the concern of ecological validity. In this review, we suggest that the field can benefit from adopting a more ecological approach, akin to other fields of cognitive science. There, this approach challenged some existing hypotheses, yielded stronger effects, and enabled new research questions. We argue that such a move is critical for studying consciousness, where experimental paradigms tend to be artificial and small effect sizes are relatively prevalent. We identify three paths for doing so-changing the stimuli and experimental settings, changing the measures, and changing the research questions themselves-and review works that have already started implementing such approaches. While acknowledging the inherent challenges, we call for increasing ecological validity in consciousness studies.