Demo 1: Prolonged Unconsciousness by Continuous Flash Suppression

(Experiment 1 in Tsuchiya & Koch.pdf)

Look at the movie through a color filter (one in red, the other in blue). What do you see?

Most people see only a rapid stream of Mondrian patterns for a long time. Here, a different Mondrian pattern is flashed every 100 msec into one eye through a blue filter.

Do you see a stationary stripe pattern? The stripe pattern is projected to the other eye through the complimentary filter (you can check it by closing one eye). Although it is projected to one eye all the time, it is suppressed from consciousness.

If you click a stop button (" mark), you will experience alternating percepts between the stripe and the Mondrian pattern on the order of seconds. This alternation is called binocular rivalry. (For the excellent review and demo for the binocular rivalry, see Dr. Randolph Blake's website )

The duration of perceptual suppression is at least ten times greater than that produced by binocular rivalry. Because Continuous Flash Suppression provides a very reliable and prolonged perceptual suppression, it is an attractive tool for studies of unconscious visual processing.