Electrophysiological correlates of detection and identification awareness for digits and letters.
Neuropsychologia February 15, 2026 Stefan Wiens, Mingailė Greičiūtė, Billy Gerdfeldter et al.
A candidate neural correlate of consciousness (NCC) in vision is the visual awareness negativity (VAN), an event-related potential occurring about 200 ms after stimulus onset over posterior electrode sites. Two preregistered experiments tested whether VAN is more sensitive to low-level detection awareness (seeing something) or high-level identification awareness (seeing what it is). In Experiment 1 (N = 30), using digits or letters, VAN was similarly sensitive to both types of awareness. In Experiment 2 (N = 28), stimulus size did not affect VAN for identification. Results confirm VAN's sensitivity to both detection and identification but suggest limited specificity in separating low-level from high-level experiences.