Our visual system can process information at both conscious and unconscious levels. Understanding the factors that control whether a stimulus reaches our awareness, and the fate of those stimuli that remain at an unconscious level, are the major challenges of brain science in the new millennium. Since its publication in 1984, Visual Masking has established itself as a classic text in the field of cognitive psychology. In the years since, there have been considerable advances in the cognitive neurosciences, and a (...) growth of interest in the topic of consciousness, and the time is ripe for a new edition of this text. Where most current approaches to the study of visual consciousness adopt a 'steady-state' view, the approach presented in this book explores its dynamic properties. This new edition uses the technique of visual masking to explore temporal aspects of conscious and unconscious processes down to a resolution in the millisecond range. The 'time slices' through conscious and unconscious vision revealed by the visual masking technique can shed light on both normal and abnormal operations in the brain. The main focus of this book is on the microgenesis of visual form and pattern perception - microgenesis referring to the processes occurring in the visual system from the time of stimulus presentation on the retinae to the time, a few hundred milliseconds later, of its registration at conscious or unconscious perceptual and behavioural levels. The book takes a highly integrative approach by presenting microgenesis within a broad context encompassing visuo-temporal phenomena, attention, and consciousness. (shrink)

This new edition uses the technique of visual masking to explore temporal aspects of conscious and unconscious processes down to a resolution in the...

Masking the Abject traces the beginnings of the malediction of play in Western metaphysics to Aristotle. Mechthild Nagel's innovative study demonstrates how play has served as a 'castaway' in western philosophical thinking: It is considered to be repulsive and loathsome, yet also fascinating and desirable. The book illustrates how play 'succeeds' and proliferates after Hegel—despite its denunciation by classical philosophers—entering Marxist, phenomenological, postmodern, and feminist discourses. This work provides the reader with a superb analyisis of how the distinction between the (...) serious and the playful has developed over time, charting play's changing ontological status, and ethical and aesthetic dimensions, from the logocentric to the bacchnalian. (shrink)

During emerging public health crises, both policymakers and members of the public are looking to scientific experts to provide guidance. Even in cases where there are significant uncertainties, there is pressure for experts to “speak with one voice” to avoid confusion, allow officials to make evidence-based decisions rapidly, and encourage public support for such decisions. This can lead experts to engage in masking of information about the state of the science or regarding assumptions involved in policy recommendations. Although experts might (...) have good reasons for masking disagreements, uncertainties, or assumptions when offering policy advice, we argue that this strategy can result in epistemic harms. Using the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, we show that public health authorities masked two types of information necessary for laypersons to evaluate public health recommendations: (1) experts’ disagreements about the scientific evidence and (2) the role of values in making inferences from the science to policy positions. We contend that this resulted in epistemic harms against laypeople that provide a pro tanto case against masking information. We further argue that when the science is in flux and policies need to be implemented despite significant uncertainties, there is an all-things-considered case against masking the types of information discussed. (shrink)

ABSTRACT A reflection on the “mask,” as a question of response and responsibility in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

To date, COVID-19 has spread across the world, changing our way of life and forcing us to wear face masks. This report demonstrates that face masks influence the human ability to infer emotions by observing facial configurations. Specifically, a mask obstructing a face limits the ability of people of all ages to infer emotions expressed by facial features, but the difficulties associated with the mask’s use are significantly pronounced in children aged between 3 and 5 years old. These findings are (...) of essential importance, as they suggest that we live in a time that may potentially affect the development of social and emotion reasoning, and young children’s future social abilities should be monitored to assess the true impact of the use of masks. (shrink)

There are many reasons why scientific experts may mask disagreement and endorse a position publicly as “jointly accepted.” In this paper I consider the inner workings of a group of scientists charged with deciding not only a technically difficult issue, but also a matter of social and political importance: the maximum acceptable dose of radiation. I focus on how, in this real world situation, concerns with credibility, authority, and expertise shaped the process by which this group negotiated the competing virtues (...) of reaching consensus versus reporting accurately the nature and degree of disagreement among them. (shrink)

Some have claimed that identity crowding is a case where we consciously see an object to which we are unable to pay attention. Opponents of this view offer alternative explanations, which emphasise the importance of prior knowledge, amongst other factors. We review new empirical evidence showing that prior knowledge has a profound effect on identity crowding. We argue that this is problematic for the “conscious seeing without attention” view, and supports an opposing view.

There are many reasons why scientific experts may mask disagreement and endorse a position publicly as “jointly accepted.” In this paper I consider the inner workings of a group of scientists charged with deciding not only a technically difficult issue, but also a matter of social and political importance: the maximum acceptable dose of radiation. I focus on how, in this real world situation, concerns with credibility, authority, and expertise shaped the process by which this group negotiated the competing virtues (...) of reaching consensus versus reporting accurately the nature and degree of disagreement among them. (shrink)

Noise will be inevitably mixed with music signals in the recording process. To improve the quality of music signals, it is necessary to reduce noise as much as possible. This article briefly introduces noise, the masking effect, and the spectral subtraction method for reducing noise in reverberant music. The spectral subtraction method was improved by the human ear masking effect to enhance its noise reduction performance. Simulation experiments were carried out on the traditional and improved spectral subtraction methods. The results (...) showed that the improved spectral subtraction method could reduce the noise in reverberant music more effectively; under an objective evaluation criterion, the signal-to-noise ratio, the de-reverberated music signal processed by the improved spectral subtraction method had a higher signal-to-noise ratio; under a subjective evaluation criterion, mean opinion score, the de-reverberated music signal processed by the improved spectral subtraction method also had a better evaluation. (shrink)

The concept of simultaneous masking in visual field is discussed, in the light of classical examples, of the various kinds of the phenomenon, of a modal completion, of the figure/ground phenomenon, of ambiguous and reversible figures, of mimicry and camouflage and eventually of the complexity of the stimulus. There is some reference to masking in auditory field. The “reality” of the masked configuration is discussed, drawing the conclusion that it is perceptually unreal. The fact that the masking phenomenon cannot take (...) place without comparison between two perceptual acts – what we see at one moment and what we see a moment after LATER – and the fact that the masked configuration pops out with some surprise, lead to the conclusion that simultaneous masking in visual field is not a bare perceptual phenomenon, but a psychological process not unlike insight. (shrink)

A profile of teacher competences is described and interrogated in the light of inherent, language-based problematics. It is argued that such texts tend to constrain the modes and parameters within which to think about one's practice, in addition to masking possible deficiences in education systems through a pathologisation of the individual practitioner. The importance of keeping alive alternative discourses is stressed. Such discourses, it is argued, should recognise the complex idiosyncratic, contingent aspects of teaching and learning, and should include students' (...) reflections on their own in- and out-school experiences through dialogic, autobiographical writing. (shrink)

Having noted my intention to improve upon other statistical analyses of causal relatedness by providing theoretical means to distinguish cause and effect without reference to temporality [1], Professor Shrader argues [3] that the alternative model I offer falters “before the same sort of examples he had previously used to assail” these other analyses. Although the assailant seems both to have misunderstood the model in question and to have overestimated the effect of his counterexamples, his objections provide a welcome opportunity for (...) clarification. (shrink)

It would seem that the difficulty in attempting to bring together ideas based on centuries-old academic disciplines with the more modern ones, which originate directly from business schools and the world of finance and economy, could explain why few, if any, real attempts have been made, over the last decade or so, to discover possible parallelisms between management and philosophy. However, through the thorough study of certain subjects, and the “history of ideas”, such parallelisms, and the so-called “masked philosophy” which (...) seems to undoubtedly inspire managerial conduct, can be found. In order to help us undertake and to better comprehend this “journey of discovery”, various schools of thought, stemming from ancient to more recent times are fundamental. References to the dissimulation philosophical paradigms of leadership, the Jesuitical schools of philosophical thinking of the Sixteenth century, the pioneer contributions of Leo Strauss, which are particularly illuminating with regards to the relation of the mutability of managerial conduct and the more recent and epoch-makingconsiderations of Richard Popkin, to quote but a few, are all crucial for the discovery and identification of these parallelisms, here particularly studied between dissimulation and business ethics. (shrink)

In a backward masking paradigm Epstein, Hatfield, and Muise (1977) found that presentation of a frontoparallel pattern mask caused the perceived shape of elliptical figures which were rotated in depth to conform to a projective shape function. The current study extended the masking function by examining the effect of a mask which was partially or wholly cotemporal with the target. The study also assessed the functional equivalence of the masking treatment and the conventional treatment for minimizing depth information. Reports of (...) perceived shape and perceived orientation were obtained under three conditions: binocular without mask, binocular with mask, monocular without mask. Under the first condition, perceived shape conformed to objective shape and perceived orientation was proportional to objective orientation. Under the latter two conditions, perceived shape was in very close agreement to projective shape and the two functions did not differ. Orientation was underestimated greatly under both conditions. We concluded that the effect of the mask on perceived shape is mediated by its effect on encoding of orientation information, although an additional effect on the subsequent stage of shape-slant integration cannot be excluded. (shrink)

Twelve subjects provided shape and orientation judgments for a set of projectively equivalent, variously rotated rectangles under three viewing conditions—monoptic, dichoptic, and binocular—with and without the presence of a pattern mask. In the absence of the mask, partial constancy was exhibited under the first two conditions and near perfect constancy under the binocular condition. Orientation was discriminated. Presence of the mask produced projective shape matching and diminished orientation discrimination. It is argued that the site of masking was postchiasmal, and the (...) results are related to previous work with pattern masking of projectively equivalent ellipses. (shrink)

A profile of teacher competences is described and interrogated in the light of inherent, language-based problematics. It is argued that such texts tend to constrain the modes and parameters within which to think about one's practice, in addition to masking possible deficiences in education systems through a pathologisation of the individual practitioner. The importance of keeping alive alternative discourses is stressed. Such discourses, it is argued, should recognise the complex idiosyncratic, contingent aspects of teaching and learning, and should include students' (...) reflections on their own in- and out-school experiences through dialogic, autobiographical writing. (shrink)

I investigate the intrinsic/extrinsic nature of stemness in muscle stem cells (MSC) by relying on recent research on quiescence, with the aim of shedding light on the nature of dispositions and deriving some consequences about stem cells. First, I argue why the study of quiescence is the best available way to establish any claim about the intrinsicness/extrinsicness of stemness at least is some stem cells. Drawing on that, I argue that MSC’s stem capacities result from the combination of intrinsic cues (...) plus extrinsic factors from the stem cell niche, making stemness an extrinsic disposition in MSC. Importantly, it is shown that the niche allows the instantiation of stemness in MSC by acting as a masker of its manifestation. This shows that stemness is, at least in MSC, what I call an extrinsically structurally masked disposition (SMD); that is, a disposition whose instantiation requires, as a condition of possibility, the interaction between the bearer and a masker. Finally, I conclude by suggesting some potential consequences of this observation for the philosophical study of dispositions and for stem cell research. (shrink)

In vision research metacontrast masking is a widely used technique to reduce the visibility of a stimulus. Typically, studies attempt to reveal general principles that apply to a large majority of participants and tend to omit possible individual differences. The neural plasticity of the visual system, however, entails the potential capability for individual differences in the way observers perform perceptual tasks. We report a case of perceptual learning in a metacontrast masking task that leads to the enhancement of two types (...) of adult human observers despite identical learning conditions. In a priming task both types of observers exhibited the same priming effects, which were insensitive to learning. Findings suggest that visual processing of target stimuli in the metacontrast masking task is based on neural levels with sufficient plasticity to enable the development of two types of observers, which do not contribute to processing of target stimuli in the priming task. (shrink)

When the stored representation of the meaning of a stimulus is accessed through the processing of a sensory input it is maintained in an activated state for a certain amount of time that allows for further processing. This semantic activation is generally accompanied by conscious identification, which can be demonstrated by the ability of a person to perform discriminations on the basis of the meaning of the stimulus. The idea that a sensory input can give rise to semantic activation without (...) concomitant conscious identification was the central thesis of the controversial research in subliminal perception. Recently, new claims for the existence of such phenomena have arisen from studies in dichotic listening, parafoveal vision, and visual pattern masking. Because of the fundamental role played by these types of experiments in cognitive psychology, the new assertions have raised widespread interest. (shrink)

Visual stimuli as well as transcranial magnetic stimulation can be used: to suppress the visibility of a target and to recover the visibility of a target that has been suppressed by another mask. Both types of stimulation thus provide useful methods for studying the microgenesis of object perception. We first review evidence of similarities between the processes by which a TMS mask and a visual mask can either suppress the visibility of targets or recover such suppressed visibility. However, we then (...) also point out a significant difference that has important implications for the study of the time course of unconscious and conscious visual information processing and for theoretical accounts of the processes involved. We present evidence and arguments showing: that visual masking techniques, by revealing more detailed aspects of target masking and target recovery, support a theoretical approach to visual masking and visual perception that must take into account activities in two separate neural channels or processing streams and, as a corollary, that at the current stage of methodological sophistication visual masks, by acting in more highly specifiable ways on these pathways, provide information about the microgenesis of form perception not available with TMS masks. (shrink)