The current experiment utilizes masking and a manipulation of task-relevance to achieve a 2x2 comparison between visibility (seen vs. unseen stimuli) and task-relevancy (report vs. no-report). There are two main comparisons of interest: (1) the contrast between ‘seen’ and ‘unseen’ task-relevant stimuli, and (2) the contrast between ‘seen’ and ‘unseen’ task-irrelevant stimuli. The main question, in brief, is whether a particular neural difference between seen and unseen stimuli, known to be present for task-relevant stimuli (i.e., the P3b ERP), is also present when stimuli are task-irrelevant.
A preregistration file (named "Masking OSF") is attached below which details the hypotheses, experimental design, and planned analyses.