Self-initiated action rescues visual targets from backwards masking

When a visual target is followed by a visual mask stimulus, the target sometimes goes unseen. This is visual masking. In an experiment treating a masked visual stimulus as the sensory outcome of self-initiated action, we demonstrate that self-initiated action can rescue visual targets from backwards masks. Specifically, participants were correct about a visual target more often when the target-mask sequence appeared after their self-initiated action than when its onset was triggered externally. While self-initiated action sometimes induces sensory attenuation, whereby the perception of sensory events that follow actions is dampened, we observed that self-initiated action promotes the perception of the visual target. This effect could not be explained by the temporal (also called intentional) binding effect, another anticipatory effect that arises from self-initiated action. In addition to this effect, we also demonstrate the successful execution of a visual masking paradigm delivered online using a crowd-sourcing platform.