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Related Concept Videos

Blind Procedures02:07

Blind Procedures

Ideally, the people who observe and record the children’s behavior are unaware of who was assigned to the experimental or control group, in order to control for experimenter bias. Experimenter bias refers to the possibility that a researcher’s expectations might skew the results of the study. Remember, conducting an experiment requires a lot of planning, and the people involved in the research project have a vested interest in supporting their hypotheses. If the observers knew which child was...
Hindsight Biases01:12

Hindsight Biases

Hindsight bias leads you to believe that the event you just experienced was predictable, even though it really wasn’t. In other words, you knew all along that things would turn out the way they did. Can you relate this to the phrase "Hindsight is 20/20" now?
Blinding01:11

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Blinding is a commonly used method of not telling participants which treatment a subject is receiving. Blinding is a critical part of a randomized control trial or RCT. It reduces the bias that affects the results. In an RCT, blinding is used in the form of a placebo. A placebo effect occurs when untreated subjects falsely believe they have received the treatment and report improved symptoms. A placebo or a dummy treatment is administered to subjects to negate the bias caused by such an effect.
Difference from Background: Limit of Detection01:05

Difference from Background: Limit of Detection

The limit of detection (LOD) is the smallest amount of analyte that can be distinguished from the background noise. The LOD value corresponds to the concentration at which the analyte signal is three times larger than the standard deviation of the blank signal. Below this value, the analyte signal cannot be differentiated from the background noise. It is calculated by dividing the calibration slope by 3 times the standard deviation of the blank signals.
The LOD indicates the presence or absence...
Sensation01:21

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Sensory receptors are specialized neurons that respond to specific types of external stimuli, initiating the process known as sensation. This occurs when sensory input, such as light entering the eye, is detected by these receptors, causing chemical changes in the cells of the retina. These cells then convert the sensory stimulus into action potentials that are transmitted to the central nervous system, a process termed transduction.
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Subliminal Perception01:15

Subliminal Perception

Subliminal perception refers to the processing of sensory information that occurs below the level of conscious awareness. Researchers study subliminal perception by presenting a stimulus, such as a word or image, very quickly, typically around 50 milliseconds. This rapid presentation is often followed by another stimulus, such as a pattern of dots or lines, which blocks further mental processing of the initial stimulus. As a result, if participants cannot identify the initial stimulus better...

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Related Experiment Video

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Co-analysis of Brain Structure and Function using fMRI and Diffusion-weighted Imaging
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Is blindsight possible under signal detection theory? Comment on Phillips (2021).

Mathias Michel1, Hakwan Lau2

  • 1Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science, London School of Economics and Political Science.

Psychological Review
|May 3, 2021
PubMed
Summary

Blindsight, the ability to respond to visual stimuli without conscious awareness, may stem from response criterion artifacts. While this explains some cases, key findings suggest a genuine dissociation between awareness and visual sensitivity in blindsight patients.

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Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Vision Science

Background:

  • Blindsight describes the phenomenon where individuals with visual cortex damage can respond to visual stimuli they do not consciously see.
  • Phillips proposed blindsight arises from response criterion artifacts in degraded conscious vision.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To evaluate Phillips' artifact hypothesis against empirical evidence in blindsight research.
  • To investigate the relationship between conscious awareness and visual sensitivity in blindsight.

Main Methods:

  • Analysis of existing empirical findings on blindsight.
  • Comparison of artifact-based explanations with observed dissociations in visual perception.

Main Results:

  • Phillips' hypothesis offers alternative explanations for some blindsight studies.
  • Not all response criterion effects are definitively nonperceptual.
  • Awareness is not always abolished, showing variability across stimuli and patients.

Conclusions:

  • Phillips' artifact theory may not fully account for all blindsight phenomena.
  • A relative dissociation between awareness and visual sensitivity is observed in some blindsight cases.
  • This dissociation highlights the complexity and importance of studying blindsight.