TY - JOUR
T1 - Gradual relation between perceptual awareness, recognition and pupillary responses to social threat
AU - Poyo Solanas, Marta
AU - Zhan, Minye
AU - de Gelder, Beatrice
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) FP7-IDEAS-ERC (Grant number 295673 ; Emobodies), by the ERC Synergy grant (Grant number 856495; Relevance), by the Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) Proactive Program H2020-EU.1.2.2 (Grant number 824160 ; EnTimeMent) and by the Industrial Leadership Program H2020-EU.1.2.2 (Grant number 825079; MindSpaces).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023
PY - 2023/8/14
Y1 - 2023/8/14
N2 - There is substantial evidence supporting the processing of affective stimuli outside of conscious awareness in both healthy individuals and brain-damaged patients. However, the methodologies used to assess awareness are still a matter of debate, with also implications for dichotomous or gradual theories. In two experiments, we investigated how social threat is processed in healthy participants by combining the continuous flash suppression paradigm and the perceptual awareness scale, a fine-grained measure of perceptual awareness. Our findings revealed a gradual relationship between emotional recognition and perceptual awareness, with higher recognition sensitivity for fearful than angry bodies across all visual awareness levels, except during perceptual unawareness where performance was at chance level. Interestingly, angry body expressions were suppressed for a shorter duration than neutral and fearful ones. Furthermore, pupil dilation responses were influenced by affective expression, suppression duration and perceptual awareness level. In conclusion, our results highlight a gradual relationship between behavioral and pupillary responses and perceptual awareness, which is further influenced by the specific stimulus category being processed. In addition, our results illustrate that certain experimental choices, such as stimulus type or the method used to assess awareness, are important factors to be considered in consciousness studies.
AB - There is substantial evidence supporting the processing of affective stimuli outside of conscious awareness in both healthy individuals and brain-damaged patients. However, the methodologies used to assess awareness are still a matter of debate, with also implications for dichotomous or gradual theories. In two experiments, we investigated how social threat is processed in healthy participants by combining the continuous flash suppression paradigm and the perceptual awareness scale, a fine-grained measure of perceptual awareness. Our findings revealed a gradual relationship between emotional recognition and perceptual awareness, with higher recognition sensitivity for fearful than angry bodies across all visual awareness levels, except during perceptual unawareness where performance was at chance level. Interestingly, angry body expressions were suppressed for a shorter duration than neutral and fearful ones. Furthermore, pupil dilation responses were influenced by affective expression, suppression duration and perceptual awareness level. In conclusion, our results highlight a gradual relationship between behavioral and pupillary responses and perceptual awareness, which is further influenced by the specific stimulus category being processed. In addition, our results illustrate that certain experimental choices, such as stimulus type or the method used to assess awareness, are important factors to be considered in consciousness studies.
KW - Body
KW - CFS
KW - PAS
KW - Perceptual awareness
KW - Pupillometry
KW - Threat
U2 - 10.1016/j.crbeha.2023.100134
DO - 10.1016/j.crbeha.2023.100134
M3 - Article
SN - 2666-5182
VL - 5
JO - Current Research in Behavioral Sciences
JF - Current Research in Behavioral Sciences
M1 - 100134
ER -