Figure 1
Possible relations between thresholds derived from subjective and objective measures of awareness. (A) Subjective measures lag behind objective measures. (B) Objective measures lag behind subjective measures. (C) Subjective and objective measures converge. Shown are hypothetical psychometric functions of objective (accuracy ranging from chance level to 100%) and subjective measures (subjective experience ranging from unawareness to full awareness) as a function of stimulus mask SOA or stimulus duration in ms. A gradual manipulation of stimulation mask SOA or stimulus duration leads to varying objective and subjective visibility. Subjective and objective thresholds (dotted lines) were determined at the inflection point of the respective psychometric function. For simplicity reasons, psychometric functions display the identical steepness. Abbreviations: SOA: stimulus onset asynchrony; ms: milliseconds.
Figure 2
Temporal 2 alternative forced choice task. Detection and discrimination tasks comprised of two target-mask sequences with a target (one frame) followed by a mask formed by a string of false font letters (200 ms). Stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) between target and mask adaptively varied in a range between 6.7 ms and 340 ms. The interval between the two sequences was 900 ms. After the second sequence, observers had to respond to the objective and subjective tasks, subsequently: (1) objective task: In what interval was the target flashed? (indicated by a question mark); (2) What was the visibility like? (PAS-scale, 1–4). In the detection task in one of the two sequences a word was flashed, the other sequence consisted of a mask only. The discrimination task consisted of two words, one written in capital letters, the other in small letters. This figure is adopted from Kiefer and Kammer (2023a) under the CC BY 4.0 license.