Article

Although the nature of the relationship between attention and awareness is
actively debated, the possibility that different forms of attention might
interact differently with awareness has never been directly tested. We examine
here whether voluntary and involuntary spatial attentions, two forms of attention
that were distinguished by manipulating the predictability of central arrow cues,
interact in the same way with visual awareness. Conscious perception was enhanced
by both voluntary and involuntary attentions, and to a similar extent, suggesting
volition may not be an essential feature for awareness. However, the influence of
attention was dependent on the awareness of the target stimulus: Voluntary
attention shortened reaction times and improved discrimination accuracy of cued
relative to uncued stimuli, but only when the stimuli were consciously perceived.
Involuntary attention shortened reaction times for cued relative to uncued target
stimuli, but only when the stimuli were not consciously perceived. Our results
imply that the nature of the relationship between attention and awareness is not
a simple one but depends on the type of attention involved. More specifically,
our results suggest that the aware or unaware status of the stimulus could
determine whether attentional facilitation is driven by voluntary or involuntary
mechanisms, a proposal that goes in the opposite direction of the classical view
that attention controls awareness. Because voluntary attentional benefits were
observed in aware trials but involuntary attentional benefits were observed in
unaware trials only, our results also argue against the idea that attentional
effects on conscious and unconscious processing are fundamentally of the same
nature.
CI - Copyright (c) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Langue : ANGLAIS