Subliminal perception is continuous with conscious vision and can be predicted from prestimulus electroencephalographic activity

Individuals are able to discriminate visual stimuli they report not consciously seeing. This phenomenon is known as “subliminal perception.” Such capacity often assumed be relatively automatic in nature and rely on stimulus-driven activity low-level cortical areas. Instead, here we asked what extent neural before stimulus presentation influences subliminal perception. We participants the location of a briefly presented low-contrast then rate how well saw stimulus. Consistent with previous studies, correctly discriminated slightly above chance-level accuracy reported Signal detection analyses indicated that while subjects categorized their percepts “unconscious,” these lay same continuum conscious vision. show discriminating could predicted high (AUC = 0.70) based lateralized electroencephalographic (EEG) stimulus, hemifield where was presented, trial's discrimination response. Altogether, our results suggest rather than being separate unconscious capacity, perception similar processes