Strongly masked visual stimuli are not erased but briefly held in a subliminal sensory buffer store (SSBS), where repetition can make them consciously accessible. The presentation sequence and the time from target to evaluation do not significantly affect perception. Selected information from the SSBS is transferred into a supraliminal short-term memory that maintains stable, fully conscious representations. The level of conscious access in memory storage influences later reportability more than initial phenomenology does, and this factor should be more prominent in discussions of perception and consciousness.
Strongly masked visual information can be stored and accumulate to elicit clear perception, even when people are not consciously aware of it. Masking did not erase or overwrite memory traces but limited conscious perception. Stored information decayed gradually but rapidly: extraction of meaningful information was severely impaired after 300 milliseconds, and most data was lost after 700 milliseconds. These findings support theories of consciousness based on integration of subliminal information and the global workspace theory, particularly the existence of an implicit iconic memory buffer store.