Disentangling experience from reportability: A massive-report paradigm for visual experience outside goal-oriented attention

Abstract

When we look at something, we might feel we see a richly detailed external world, but if being asked, our reports are often limited. This discrepancy is one of the central questions in cognitive science. Despite its fundamental importance, philosophers and psychologists still do not agree on whether our “experience” is rich or sparse, depending on their stance on consciousness and associated psychological processes. In this Registered Report, we propose to disentangle these psychological processes from consciousness to better understand if experience is rich or sparse. To solve previously identified methodological concerns, our paradigm effectively combines partial-report, pre-/post-cues, and a massive number of natural stimuli that were previously annotated by many participants in a separate free-report paradigm. Our results will support either rich or sparse hypotheses on consciousness with minimal confounds by other psychological processes.