Affordances and expectations about depth play a role in real objects' access to visual awareness

The scope of our (visual) consciousness is limited, so incoming perceptual information must be filtered upon entering awareness. One approach for better understanding this filtering mechanism, is to examine the time it takes different stimuli to emerge to awareness when suppressed by masking techniques. For example, studies have shown that stimuli which match our expectations overcome suppression more easily (e.g. upright faces vs. inverted ones). In previous works, we showed that actual, tangible objects placed in front of participants escaped “real-life” Continuous Flash Suppression (“real-life” CFS) faster than their 2D photographs, but only when these objects were familiar. In a series of carefully planned replication experiments, we asked whether this result might be explained by the expectation to perceive such stimuli in 3D as opposed to 2D form. The results further strengthened the finding of real objects overcoming suppression more easily than their photographs. However, a mixed pattern was found for stimuli which are commonly experienced in 2D - letters, words and logos - either showing no difference in suppression times or faster emergence of their 2D form. These results call for further inspection of the role of expectations about depth in access to awareness, and also highlight the importance of replication attempts for novel findings, especially for complex and novel paradigms.