Replicating the unconscious working memory effect: a multisite Registered Report

Although in recent years some studies have found evidence suggesting that working memory (WM) may operate on unconscious perceptual contents, decisive demonstrations of the existence of unconscious WM are lacking. In the present Registered Report, we replicate the first study on this topic by Soto et al. (Working memory without consciousness. <i>Curr Biol</i> 2011;<b>21</b>:R912-3.): a visual discrimination task asking participants to report the direction in which a subliminal Gabor grating was rotated after a 2-s delay. We acquired a multisite sample from 19 laboratories, with a larger number of participants (<i>N =</i> 531) and trials (720 in two sessions) than those typically used in previous studies. As a result, a large-sample, international, and open-access dataset is now available for researchers and future analyses. Furthermore, some minimal baseline requirements were guaranteed for the experimental task (i.e. number of valid trials, motivation, and consistent labels for the Perceptual Awareness Scale). The results showed (1) above-chance WM performance in cue-present trials reported as unseen (.55 accuracy), (2) a significant positive correlation between WM performance and cue detection sensitivity (<i>r</i> = .228), and (3) a significant above-chance intercept in the regression of performance on sensitivity (<i>β</i> <sub>0</sub> = .521). These findings suggest that WM can operate on unconscious representations, although it remains positively associated with perceptual sensitivity. Crucially, because measurement error could compromise the interpretation of these three results, we provide evidence for our measures' excellent reliability and, more fundamentally, for their validity.

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Journal
Neuroscience of Consciousness
Published
2025-10-22
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1093/nc/niaf046
Primary Topic
Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
Type
article
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article

Replicating the unconscious working memory effect: a multisite Registered Report

Miriam Maeztu Tortajada, Fredrik Bergström, Ricardo Rey-Sáez, Laura Contu et al.
Neuroscience of Consciousness
Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
article

Replicating the unconscious working memory effect: a multisite Registered Report

Miriam Maeztu Tortajada, Fredrik Bergström, Ricardo Rey-Sáez, Laura Contu, Ana María Aranda Hernando, Dmitry Tarasov, Alejandro Sandoval‐Lentisco, Pedro R. Montoro, Yunxuan Zheng, Dobromir Rahnev, Akira Sarodo, Anna Grubert, Yi Gao, Jesús Adrián‐Ventura, Liad Mudrik, Mikel Jimenez, Gabriele Pesimena, Filippo Gambarota, Kai Xue, Simone Malejka, Ana Baciero, Alicia Franco-Martínez, Pietro Amerio, Francisco Garre-Frutos, David Shanks, Ziqian Xue, Shao-Min Hung, Maor Schreiber, Fatma Nur Dolu, Asaf Hoory, Merve Kulaksız, Elmas Merve Malas, Lais Ringenberg, Merve Çinici, Aine Ito, Yuri G. Pavlov, Roberto Dell'Acqua, David Soto, Antonio Prieto, ZhiKun Hou, Pablo Solana, Miguel A Vadillo, Paola Sessa, Alexandra I Kosachenko, José A Hinojosa, Daryl Y H Lee, Xinping Deng, Amine Bennis
article en

Abstract

Although in recent years some studies have found evidence suggesting that working memory (WM) may operate on unconscious perceptual contents, decisive demonstrations of the existence of unconscious WM are lacking. In the present Registered Report, we replicate the first study on this topic by Soto et al. (Working memory without consciousness. <i>Curr Biol</i> 2011;<b>21</b>:R912-3.): a visual discrimination task asking participants to report the direction in which a subliminal Gabor grating was rotated after a 2-s delay. We acquired a multisite sample from 19 laboratories, with a larger number of participants (<i>N =</i> 531) and trials (720 in two sessions) than those typically used in previous studies. As a result, a large-sample, international, and open-access dataset is now available for researchers and future analyses. Furthermore, some minimal baseline requirements were guaranteed for the experimental task (i.e. number of valid trials, motivation, and consistent labels for the Perceptual Awareness Scale). The results showed (1) above-chance WM performance in cue-present trials reported as unseen (.55 accuracy), (2) a significant positive correlation between WM performance and cue detection sensitivity (<i>r</i> = .228), and (3) a significant above-chance intercept in the regression of performance on sensitivity (<i>β</i> <sub>0</sub> = .521). These findings suggest that WM can operate on unconscious representations, although it remains positively associated with perceptual sensitivity. Crucially, because measurement error could compromise the interpretation of these three results, we provide evidence for our measures' excellent reliability and, more fundamentally, for their validity.

Neuroscience of ConsciousnessVol. 2026(1)
Universidad Complutense de Madrid (ES), Georgia Institute of Technology (US), Ural Federal University (RU), Université Libre de Bruxelles (BE), University of Padua (IT), Waseda University (JP), Tel Aviv University (IL), National University of Singapore (SG), Bilkent University (TR), Universidad de Granada (ES), Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (ES), University of Cologne (DE), Durham University (GB), Beijing Normal University (CN), Universidad de Zaragoza (ES), Konya Food and Agriculture University (TR), Universidad Nebrija (ES), University of Bristol (GB), Guangzhou University (CN), Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (ES), Language Science (South Korea) (KR), University College London (GB), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (ES), University of Coimbra (PT), Universidad de Murcia (ES), University of Tübingen (DE), Hologic (Germany) (DE), South China University of Technology (CN)
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