Decoding dynamic faces and scenes without awareness under dis-continuous flash suppression
Abstract In the perceptual sciences, there is an ongoing debate about the depth of unconscious processing. Here, we address this issue by implementing three improvements with regards to paradigm, stimuli and analyses to explore the neural correlates of unconscious face processing. Our results demons...
Saved in:
| Main Authors: | , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Nature Portfolio
2025-01-01
|
| Series: | Communications Biology |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-025-07563-5 |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| _version_ | 1832571412955529216 |
|---|---|
| author | Yen-Ju Feng Shao-Min Hung Po-Jang Hsieh |
| author_facet | Yen-Ju Feng Shao-Min Hung Po-Jang Hsieh |
| author_sort | Yen-Ju Feng |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Abstract In the perceptual sciences, there is an ongoing debate about the depth of unconscious processing. Here, we address this issue by implementing three improvements with regards to paradigm, stimuli and analyses to explore the neural correlates of unconscious face processing. Our results demonstrated that conscious faces elicited broader univariate activations than conscious scenes. Such results were absent when faces/scenes were suppressed and invisible (n = 43). However, further whole-brain multivariate classification revealed that both static and dynamic invisible faces could be distinguished from scenes in the occipital-temporal region. ROI analysis showed that bilateral FFA and OFA could differentiate dynamic invisible faces from dynamic invisible scenes. These findings suggest that interocularly suppressed faces are still processed in-depth in the ventral visual stream. Therefore, our study highlights the importance of optimizing stimulus signal, experimental paradigm, and analysis to extract unconscious signals in the brain. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-e779457a1291407fae6d5b313f9ea4a9 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2399-3642 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-01-01 |
| publisher | Nature Portfolio |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Communications Biology |
| spelling | doaj-art-e779457a1291407fae6d5b313f9ea4a92025-02-02T12:37:12ZengNature PortfolioCommunications Biology2399-36422025-01-018111110.1038/s42003-025-07563-5Decoding dynamic faces and scenes without awareness under dis-continuous flash suppressionYen-Ju Feng0Shao-Min Hung1Po-Jang Hsieh2Department of Psychology, National Taiwan UniversityWaseda Institute for Advanced Study, Waseda UniversityDepartment of Psychology, National Taiwan UniversityAbstract In the perceptual sciences, there is an ongoing debate about the depth of unconscious processing. Here, we address this issue by implementing three improvements with regards to paradigm, stimuli and analyses to explore the neural correlates of unconscious face processing. Our results demonstrated that conscious faces elicited broader univariate activations than conscious scenes. Such results were absent when faces/scenes were suppressed and invisible (n = 43). However, further whole-brain multivariate classification revealed that both static and dynamic invisible faces could be distinguished from scenes in the occipital-temporal region. ROI analysis showed that bilateral FFA and OFA could differentiate dynamic invisible faces from dynamic invisible scenes. These findings suggest that interocularly suppressed faces are still processed in-depth in the ventral visual stream. Therefore, our study highlights the importance of optimizing stimulus signal, experimental paradigm, and analysis to extract unconscious signals in the brain.https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-025-07563-5 |
| spellingShingle | Yen-Ju Feng Shao-Min Hung Po-Jang Hsieh Decoding dynamic faces and scenes without awareness under dis-continuous flash suppression Communications Biology |
| title | Decoding dynamic faces and scenes without awareness under dis-continuous flash suppression |
| title_full | Decoding dynamic faces and scenes without awareness under dis-continuous flash suppression |
| title_fullStr | Decoding dynamic faces and scenes without awareness under dis-continuous flash suppression |
| title_full_unstemmed | Decoding dynamic faces and scenes without awareness under dis-continuous flash suppression |
| title_short | Decoding dynamic faces and scenes without awareness under dis-continuous flash suppression |
| title_sort | decoding dynamic faces and scenes without awareness under dis continuous flash suppression |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-025-07563-5 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT yenjufeng decodingdynamicfacesandsceneswithoutawarenessunderdiscontinuousflashsuppression AT shaominhung decodingdynamicfacesandsceneswithoutawarenessunderdiscontinuousflashsuppression AT pojanghsieh decodingdynamicfacesandsceneswithoutawarenessunderdiscontinuousflashsuppression |