Coming back from oblivion: target revival in object substitution masking

Abstract

In object substitution masking experiments, a target stimulus is masked by four small dots whose offset occurs after the offset of the target stimulus (Di Lollo, Enns, & Rensink, 2000). It was believed that, in this form of masking, the target was irrevocably lost. However, a recent finding suggests that targets can recover from masking and reach conscious awareness (Goodhew, Visser, Lipp, & Dux, 2011a). This thesis explores the replicability and generality of target recovery, and finds that recovery can occur in different object substitution displays. These results suggest that targets are not completely wiped from the brain during masking by object substitution. Rather, targets may remain as weak neural traces that are revived by reentrant processing.