Different subjective awareness measures demonstrate the influence of visual identification on perceptual awareness ratings

Michał Wierzchoń , Borysław Paulewicz , Dariusz Asanowicz , Bert Timmermans , Axel Cleeremans

Abstract

We compare four subjective awareness measures in the context of a visual identification task and investigate quantitative differences in terms of scale use and correlation with task performance. We also analyse the effect of identification task decisions on subsequent subjective reports. Results show that awareness ratings strongly predict accuracy for all scale types, although the type of awareness measure may influence the reported level of perceptual awareness. Surprisingly, the overall relationship between awareness ratings and performance was weaker when participants rated their awareness before providing identification responses. Furthermore, the Perceptual Awareness Scale was most exhaustive only when used after the identification task, whereas confidence ratings were most exhaustive when used before the identification task. We conclude that the type of subjective measure applied may influence the reports on visual awareness. We also propose that identification task decisions may affect subsequent awareness ratings.