Young children's subjective and objective thresholds and emergent processes of visual consciousness using a backward masking task.

Young children aged 5–6 years and adults performed a figure discrimination task while reporting their subjective awareness of a target stimulus (square or diamond) presented at varying durations. Objective accuracy thresholds were larger for children than for adults. Subjective awareness thresholds were also larger for children when using a four-point scale but not a two-point scale. No age differences were found in the emergent process of consciousness, suggesting that the way consciousness arises is similar across ages, though children require longer stimulus exposure to reach the same level of awareness.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Visual consciousness studies in humans have primarily focused on adults. However, whether young children's visual consciousness is similar to or different from that of adults remains unknown. This study examined young children's and adults' subjective awareness and objective discrimination for thresholds and emergent processes of visual consciousness in two experiments. In Experiment 1, 20 5-6-year-olds and 20 adults attempted a figure discrimination task using a square or a diamond as the target stimulus and responded, using a two-point scale, to a question on subjective awareness of the target stimulus with stimulus onset asynchronies (SOA) from 20 to 260 ms. In Experiment 2, 31 5-6-year-olds and 16 adults attempted the task and responded, using a four-point scale, to a question on subjective awareness with SOA from 50 to 550 ms. We measured the discrimination accuracy and the awareness scale with SOA and fit them to the sigmoid function. The results showed that the objective accuracy threshold of young children was larger than that of adults. Moreover, young children's subjective awareness threshold was larger than that of adults in the four-point but not in the two-point scale responses. Finally, there were no age differences in the emergent process of consciousness. This study suggests that the emergent process of consciousness in young children is similar to that in adults, however, the threshold in young children is larger than that in adults.