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Published on: December 5, 2014
Using virtual reality to induce multi-trial inattentional blindness despite trial-by-trial measures of awareness
Rony Hirschhorn1, Dan Biderman2, Natalie Biderman2,3
1Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel-Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, POB 39040, 6997801, Tel Aviv, Israel. rony.hirschhorn@gmail.com.
Abstract:
Unconscious processing has been widely examined using diverse and well-controlled methodologies. However, the extent to which these findings are relevant to real-life instances of information processing without awareness is limited. Here, we present a novel inattentional blindness (IB) paradigm in virtual reality (VR). In three experiments, we managed to repeatedly induce IB while participants foveally viewed salient stimuli for prolonged durations. The effectiveness of this paradigm demonstrates the close relationship between top-down attention and subjective experience. Thus, this method provides an ecologically valid setup to examine processing without awareness.
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