ABSTRACT
Charting the limits of unconscious processing is an important step towards understanding the functions of conscious perception. However, the current methods used to study unconscious processing have focused on uncovering what processes can at all be activated by an invisible stimulus, while neglecting the question of how much these processes depend on conscious perception. As a result, they can shed no light on the functions of conscious perception. Here, we suggest that the liminal-prime paradigm is the best available method to address this issue. We first describe the paradigm and discuss its advantages and drawbacks relative to other available methods. Then, we illustrate how it can be employed to determine the extent to which different cognitive processes can be categorized as a function of their reliance on conscious perception. We provide examples of processes that are (a) entirely independent of conscious perception, (b) entirely contingent on it, or (c) do not require conscious perception but nevertheless significantly benefit from it. Finally, we show that the liminal-prime paradigm can also be used to investigate the cost of consciously perceiving an event on the processing of a trailing event. We demonstrate that the study of this “cost of awareness” sheds new light on the highly investigated attentional blink phenomenon. We conclude with a set of guidelines for using the liminal-prime paradigm in future studies.
