Make the Unconscious Explicit to Boost the Science of Consciousness

The article discusses about making unconscious process explicit to make development in the science of consciousness. Progress in any field of science hinges on reproducible findings, no less so for a science of consciousness. Arguably, throughout the history of research on unconscious processes there has been more focus on possible false positive findings compared to false negatives. However, true progress requires a handle on both. Here we have argued that extra considerations should be taken in relation to research on unconscious higher-level cognition, such that the weight of evidence from a null finding will increase greatly if presented in a context of appropriate benchmarks. This includes verification that the experimental paradigm can and do support basic processes required for the relevant higher-level process. For example, when studying high level integration or high-level perceptual processing, a relevant benchmark would be to first show that the information to be integrated/processed is at least discriminated by the brain. Due to the non-trivial nature of implementing an unconscious stimulus presentation, such basic-level processing should not be taken for granted and appropriate verification should be included in each experiment. By explicitly demonstrating basic-level unconscious processes, the risk of false negative findings can be reduced. We have also argued that there is much to gain by explicitly demonstrating neural correlates of unconscious processes, which can reduce the risk of false positive NCCs. Much has previously been written on the issue of making conscious and unconscious conditions comparable. It remains unclear if this is at all possible, but we here advocate that at the very least, neural correlates of unconscious processes should be explicitly demonstrated to, through comparison, substantiate a NCC. Unfortunately, this is not common practice when using bi-stable stimuli, or when manipulating the state of consciousness. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)