Consciously detecting and recognizing a past visual word after its sensory trace is gone (opens in new tab)

What is the role of sensory processing in conscious perception? Current theories of consciousness are divided on this question. Some propose that conscious perception arises during the buildup of sensory representations. Others argue for a secondary process that broadcasts these representations to higher-level areas. This second view makes a counter-intuitive prediction: one could consciously perceive abstract representations untied to any low-level sensory feature. We tested this prediction ...