An alternative way to explain the above findings, in particular, the enhanced consciousness ratings (along with the enhanced response accuracy) for cueing displays, is to assume that these ratings reflect perceptual fluency—or “meta-memory” of the speed with which the target localization responses were made.
3 In other words, the consciousness ratings might reflect the (perceived) ease or speed of the localization responses, rather than perception of the target stimuli. Consistent with this, RTs in the present experiment were faster for cueing than for nonrepeated displays (main effect of display type in the training session). Thus, assuming that this speed advantage transfers to the test session, the target would also be more likely to be localized rapidly in the test phase, which might, in turn, increase the visual consciousness ratings in addition to response accuracy. In an attempt to test this alternative account, we first examined RTs in the test phase (even though participants had not been instructed that response speed was critical on these trials), which did indeed reveal response times to be overall faster for cueing than for nonrepeated displays [1565 ms vs. 1666 ms;
t(11) = 2.64,
p = 0.023]. Accordingly, response speed might have had an effect on the dependent measures in the test session. Next, for each participant, based on an RT median split, test trials were partitioned into “fast” and “slow” response trials, respectively, and the dependent measures were re-analyzed as a function of response speed (see
Table 3). Technically, observers' VE ratings, CO ratings, and accuracy performance were examined by separate 2 × 2 ANOVAs, each with display type (cueing, nonrepeated) and response speed (fast vs. slow) as factors. For the visual experience ratings, the ANOVA revealed significant main effects of display type,
F(1, 11) = 29.49,
p < 0.001, and response speed,
F(1, 11) = 27.97,
p < 0.001, but, importantly, the interaction was nonsignificant:
F(1, 11) = 0.29,
p = 0.60. The same pattern was observed for the confidence ratings, display type:
F(1, 11) = 14.46,
p < .001; response speed:
F(1, 11) = 14.46,
p < 0.001; interaction:
F(1, 11) = 2.05,
p = .18; and for response accuracy, display type:
F(1, 11) = 76.91,
p < 0.01; display type:
F(1, 11) = 20.70,
p < 0.01; interaction:
F(1, 11) = 1.03,
p = 0.33. Importantly, after the median-split RTs were not reliably different for fast cueing as compared to fast nonrepeated displays [1316 ms vs. 1321 ms;
t(11) = 0.23,
p = 0.826] (the same was true for slow cueing versus slow nonrepeated displays [1932 ms vs. 1969 ms;
t(11) = 0.61,
p = 0.552]),
4 suggesting that fast cueing and nonrepeated displays were effectively equated in terms of perceptual fluency. Nevertheless, visual consciousness ratings, along with response accuracy, were still higher for fast cueing relative to fast nonrepeated displays [VE: 3.79 vs. 3.41;
t(11) = 3.49,
p = 0.01; CO: 3.85 vs. 3.56;
t(11) = 2.40,
p = 0.035; response errors: 7.9 vs. 17.2;
t(11) = 2.77,
p = 0.01 (Holm-corrected)]. This argues that the consciousness ratings are not simply a function of perceptual fluency; instead, contextual cueing is associated with enhanced visual consciousness, as well as enhanced localization performance (this association is further considered below).