Conscious access to fear-relevant information is mediated by threshold

The present report proposed a model of access consciousness to fear-relevant information according to which there is a threshold for emotional perception beyond that the subject makes hits with no false alarm. The model was examined by having the participants performed a confidence-ratings masking task with fearful faces. Measures of the thresholds for conscious access were taken by looking at the receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curves generated from a three-state low- and high-threshold (3-LHT) model by Krantz. Indeed, the analysis of the masking data revealed that the ROCs had threshold-like-nature (a two-limb shape) rather continuous (a curvilinear shape) challenging in this fashion the classical signal-detection view on perceptual processing. Moreover, the threshold ROC curve exhibited the specific y-intercepts relevant to conscious access performance. The study suggests that the threshold can be an intrinsic property of conscious access, mediating emotional contents between perceptual states and consciousness.