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Updated: Aug 18, 2026

Investigating the Deployment of Visual Attention Before Accurate and Averaging Saccades via Eye Tracking and Assessment of Visual Sensitivity
Published on: March 18, 2019
Independence of visual awareness from attention at early processing stages
Mika Koivisto1, Antti Revonsuo, Niina Salminen
1Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Turku, Turku, Finland. mika.koivisto@utu.fi
Abstract:
According to a widely accepted idea, only the results of attentional selection reach visual awareness. A competing model postulates that awareness is independent of attentional selection: contents of subjective visual experience may also exist without the contribution of attention. We tested these competing models by tracking the independent contributions of selective attention and awareness to electrophysiological brain responses. Our results showed that the earliest effects of visual awareness emerged earlier than the effects of attention and regardless of the presence or absence of attention. The early effects of attention were elicited regardless of the presence or absence of awareness. The results suggest that visual awareness and selective attention are initially independent of each other.
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