Autistic people often hide or alter their behavior in order to meet societal expectations and fit in—a phenomenon known as masking. Masking has important benefits for neurodivergent individuals, from increasing social acceptance to enhancing their career opportunities and ability to navigate social hierarchies. But it also comes with significant costs. It often leads to mental and emotional exhaustion, increased anxiety, delayed or missed diagnosis, or even suicidal ideation. In this paper, we focus on a relatively underexplored cost of masking, namely, (...) its negative impact on subjects’ self-understanding. We appeal to the framework of mindshaping, which suggests that our thoughts, behaviors, and mental states are shaped by the social norms and expectations to which we are exposed, and argue that masking can be conceptualized as a natural reaction of neurodivergent individuals to neurotypical mindshaping. As a result, we suggest, masking commonly leads to an experience that can be characterized as “self-mask ambiguity”—a failure to demarcate and differentiate oneself from one’s mask. In light of this, we consider ways in which masking and self-mask ambiguity can diminish individuals’ self-understanding. We finish by discussing how diagnosis and unmasking can lead to a deepening of one’s self-understanding. (shrink)

Our visual system can process information at both conscious and unconscious levels. Understanding the factors that control whether a stimulus reaches our awareness, and the fate of those stimuli that remain at an unconscious level, are the major challenges of brain science in the new millennium. Since its publication in 1984, Visual Masking has established itself as a classic text in the field of cognitive psychology. In the years since, there have been considerable advances in the cognitive neurosciences, and a (...) growth of interest in the topic of consciousness, and the time is ripe for a new edition of this text. Where most current approaches to the study of visual consciousness adopt a 'steady-state' view, the approach presented in this book explores its dynamic properties. This new edition uses the technique of visual masking to explore temporal aspects of conscious and unconscious processes down to a resolution in the millisecond range. The 'time slices' through conscious and unconscious vision revealed by the visual masking technique can shed light on both normal and abnormal operations in the brain. The main focus of this book is on the microgenesis of visual form and pattern perception - microgenesis referring to the processes occurring in the visual system from the time of stimulus presentation on the retinae to the time, a few hundred milliseconds later, of its registration at conscious or unconscious perceptual and behavioural levels. The book takes a highly integrative approach by presenting microgenesis within a broad context encompassing visuo-temporal phenomena, attention, and consciousness. (shrink)

During emerging public health crises, both policymakers and members of the public are looking to scientific experts to provide guidance. Even in cases where there are significant uncertainties, there is pressure for experts to “speak with one voice” to avoid confusion, allow officials to make evidence-based decisions rapidly, and encourage public support for such decisions. This can lead experts to engage in masking of information about the state of the science or regarding assumptions involved in policy recommendations. Although experts might (...) have good reasons for masking disagreements, uncertainties, or assumptions when offering policy advice, we argue that this strategy can result in epistemic harms. Using the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, we show that public health authorities masked two types of information necessary for laypersons to evaluate public health recommendations: (1) experts’ disagreements about the scientific evidence and (2) the role of values in making inferences from the science to policy positions. We contend that this resulted in epistemic harms against laypeople that provide a pro tanto case against masking information. We further argue that when the science is in flux and policies need to be implemented despite significant uncertainties, there is an all-things-considered case against masking the types of information discussed. (shrink)

The visual world appears unified, stable, and continuous despite rapid changes in eye position. How this is accomplished has puzzled psychologists for over a century. One possibility is that visual information from successive eye fixations is fused in memory according to environmental or spatiotopic coordinates. Evidence supporting this hypothesis was provided by Davidson, Fox, and Dick (1973). They presented a letter array in one fixation and a mask at one letter position in a subsequent fixation and found that the mask (...) inhibited report of the letter that shared its retinal coordinates but appeared to occupy the same position as the letter that shared its spatial coordinates. This suggests the existence of a retinotopic visual persistence at which transsaccadic masking occurs and a spatiotopic visual persistence at which transsaccadic integration, or fusion, occurs. Using a similar procedure, we found retinotopic masking and retinotopic integration: The mask interfered with the letter that shared its retinal coordinates, but also appeared to cover that letter. In another experiment, instead of a mask we presented a bar marker over one letter position, and subjects reported the letter that appeared underneath the bar; subjects usually reported the letter with the same retinal coordinates as the bar, again suggesting retinotopic rather than spatiotopic integration across saccades. In Experiment 3 a bar marker was again presented over one letter position, but in addition a visual landmark was presented after the saccade so that subjects could localize the bar's spatial position; subjects still reported that the letter that shared the bar's retinal coordinates appeared to be under it, but they were also able to accurately specify the bar's spatial position. This ability could have been based on retinal information (the visual landmark) present in the second fixation only, however, rather than spatiotopic visual persistence. Because such a visual landmark was present in the Davidson et al. (1973) experiments, we conclude that their findings can be explained solely in retinotopic terms and provide no convincing evidence for spatiotopic visual persistence. But the exposure parameters that Davidson et al. (1973) and we used were biased in favor of retinotopic, rather than spatiotopic, coding: The stimuli were presented very briefly just before a saccadic eye movement, and subjects are poor at spatially localizing stimuli under these conditions. Thus, in Experiment 4 we presented the letter array about 200 ms before the saccade; then, subjects reported that the letter with the same spatial coordinates as the bar appeared under it. This result demonstrates the existence of a spatiotopic memory that combines information from successive fixations, but it does not show whether this memory operates by means of spatiotopic visual fusion. To determine this, in the last experiment 4 randomly chosen dots from a 3 x 3 dot matrix were presented in one fixation, and 4 different dots from the matrix were presented in a second fixation. Subjects reported the location of the missing dot. When the first display was presented just before the saccade (as in Experiments 1-3), subjects accurately specified the missing dot location when the dots were presented to the same region of the retina but not when they were presented in the same place in space. When the first display was presented well before the saccade (as in Experiment 4), subjects performed poorly regardless of retinal or spatial overlap. These results indicate the existence of a short-lived retinotopic visual persistence but provide no support for a spatiotopic visual persistence capable of fusing the contents of successive fixations. We conclude that transsaccadic integration depends instead on an abstract memory that accumulates position and identity information about the contents of successive fixations. (shrink)

Masking the Abject traces the beginnings of the malediction of play in Western metaphysics to Aristotle. Mechthild Nagel's innovative study demonstrates how play has served as a 'castaway' in western philosophical thinking: It is considered to be repulsive and loathsome, yet also fascinating and desirable. The book illustrates how play 'succeeds' and proliferates after Hegel—despite its denunciation by classical philosophers—entering Marxist, phenomenological, postmodern, and feminist discourses. This work provides the reader with a superb analyisis of how the distinction between the (...) serious and the playful has developed over time, charting play's changing ontological status, and ethical and aesthetic dimensions, from the logocentric to the bacchnalian. (shrink)

Some have claimed that identity crowding is a case where we consciously see an object to which we are unable to pay attention. Opponents of this view offer alternative explanations, which emphasise the importance of prior knowledge, amongst other factors. We review new empirical evidence showing that prior knowledge has a profound effect on identity crowding. We argue that this is problematic for the “conscious seeing without attention” view, and supports an opposing view.

In a backward masking paradigm Epstein, Hatfield, and Muise (1977) found that presentation of a frontoparallel pattern mask caused the perceived shape of elliptical figures which were rotated in depth to conform to a projective shape function. The current study extended the masking function by examining the effect of a mask which was partially or wholly cotemporal with the target. The study also assessed the functional equivalence of the masking treatment and the conventional treatment for minimizing depth information. Reports of (...) perceived shape and perceived orientation were obtained under three conditions: binocular without mask, binocular with mask, monocular without mask. Under the first condition, perceived shape conformed to objective shape and perceived orientation was proportional to objective orientation. Under the latter two conditions, perceived shape was in very close agreement to projective shape and the two functions did not differ. Orientation was underestimated greatly under both conditions. We concluded that the effect of the mask on perceived shape is mediated by its effect on encoding of orientation information, although an additional effect on the subsequent stage of shape-slant integration cannot be excluded. (shrink)

Visual stimuli as well as transcranial magnetic stimulation can be used: to suppress the visibility of a target and to recover the visibility of a target that has been suppressed by another mask. Both types of stimulation thus provide useful methods for studying the microgenesis of object perception. We first review evidence of similarities between the processes by which a TMS mask and a visual mask can either suppress the visibility of targets or recover such suppressed visibility. However, we then (...) also point out a significant difference that has important implications for the study of the time course of unconscious and conscious visual information processing and for theoretical accounts of the processes involved. We present evidence and arguments showing: that visual masking techniques, by revealing more detailed aspects of target masking and target recovery, support a theoretical approach to visual masking and visual perception that must take into account activities in two separate neural channels or processing streams and, as a corollary, that at the current stage of methodological sophistication visual masks, by acting in more highly specifiable ways on these pathways, provide information about the microgenesis of form perception not available with TMS masks. (shrink)

A profile of teacher competences is described and interrogated in the light of inherent, language-based problematics. It is argued that such texts tend to constrain the modes and parameters within which to think about one's practice, in addition to masking possible deficiences in education systems through a pathologisation of the individual practitioner. The importance of keeping alive alternative discourses is stressed. Such discourses, it is argued, should recognise the complex idiosyncratic, contingent aspects of teaching and learning, and should include students' (...) reflections on their own in- and out-school experiences through dialogic, autobiographical writing. (shrink)

Noise will be inevitably mixed with music signals in the recording process. To improve the quality of music signals, it is necessary to reduce noise as much as possible. This article briefly introduces noise, the masking effect, and the spectral subtraction method for reducing noise in reverberant music. The spectral subtraction method was improved by the human ear masking effect to enhance its noise reduction performance. Simulation experiments were carried out on the traditional and improved spectral subtraction methods. The results (...) showed that the improved spectral subtraction method could reduce the noise in reverberant music more effectively; under an objective evaluation criterion, the signal-to-noise ratio, the de-reverberated music signal processed by the improved spectral subtraction method had a higher signal-to-noise ratio; under a subjective evaluation criterion, mean opinion score, the de-reverberated music signal processed by the improved spectral subtraction method also had a better evaluation. (shrink)

There are many reasons why scientific experts may mask disagreement and endorse a position publicly as “jointly accepted.” In this paper I consider the inner workings of a group of scientists charged with deciding not only a technically difficult issue, but also a matter of social and political importance: the maximum acceptable dose of radiation. I focus on how, in this real world situation, concerns with credibility, authority, and expertise shaped the process by which this group negotiated the competing virtues (...) of reaching consensus versus reporting accurately the nature and degree of disagreement among them. (shrink)

Autistic masking has emerged as a pivotal topic of contemporary debate, highlighting the concealment of one's authentic self – a process that often leads to inauthenticity. While the negative impacts of masking are widely acknowledged, the nuanced role of inauthenticity within this phenomenon, particularly its dialectical relationship with authenticity, remains underexplored. In this article, I build on empirical work published by scholars in Psychology, Sociology, Psychiatry, and other fields to argue that, informed by Heidegger's philosophical insights, the act of masking (...) – an attempt to blend in with non‐autistic individuals – can paradoxically facilitate the growth of the authentic self. Rather than viewing the authentic and inauthentic selves as opposing forces, I propose that they coexist in a dynamic interplay for individuals with autism. The autistic self does not exist as an isolated ‘I’ in authenticity. Instead, autistic individuals can only experience their authentic selves through social interactions with others. Furthermore, Heidegger's concepts illuminate how autistic individuals often grapple with anxiety and feelings of uncanniness in interactions with non‐autistic peers; these existential moods can drive them toward a more genuine self‐expression. Consequently, navigating the delicate balance between their authentic and inauthentic selves becomes essential during social interactions. Equally important is the role of non‐autistic individuals in cultivating inclusive attitudes and supportive environments that enable diverse behavioral expressions and interaction styles within mixed neurotypical relationships. (shrink)

When the stored representation of the meaning of a stimulus is accessed through the processing of a sensory input it is maintained in an activated state for a certain amount of time that allows for further processing. This semantic activation is generally accompanied by conscious identification, which can be demonstrated by the ability of a person to perform discriminations on the basis of the meaning of the stimulus. The idea that a sensory input can give rise to semantic activation without (...) concomitant conscious identification was the central thesis of the controversial research in subliminal perception. Recently, new claims for the existence of such phenomena have arisen from studies in dichotic listening, parafoveal vision, and visual pattern masking. Because of the fundamental role played by these types of experiments in cognitive psychology, the new assertions have raised widespread interest. (shrink)

I investigate the intrinsic/extrinsic nature of stemness in muscle stem cells (MSC) by relying on recent research on quiescence, with the aim of shedding light on the nature of dispositions and deriving some consequences about stem cells. First, I argue why the study of quiescence is the best available way to establish any claim about the intrinsicness/extrinsicness of stemness at least is some stem cells. Drawing on that, I argue that MSC’s stem capacities result from the combination of intrinsic cues (...) plus extrinsic factors from the stem cell niche, making stemness an extrinsic disposition in MSC. Importantly, it is shown that the niche allows the instantiation of stemness in MSC by acting as a masker of its manifestation. This shows that stemness is, at least in MSC, what I call an extrinsically structurally masked disposition (SMD); that is, a disposition whose instantiation requires, as a condition of possibility, the interaction between the bearer and a masker. Finally, I conclude by suggesting some potential consequences of this observation for the philosophical study of dispositions and for stem cell research. (shrink)

To date, COVID-19 has spread across the world, changing our way of life and forcing us to wear face masks. This report demonstrates that face masks influence the human ability to infer emotions by observing facial configurations. Specifically, a mask obstructing a face limits the ability of people of all ages to infer emotions expressed by facial features, but the difficulties associated with the mask’s use are significantly pronounced in children aged between 3 and 5 years old. These findings are (...) of essential importance, as they suggest that we live in a time that may potentially affect the development of social and emotion reasoning, and young children’s future social abilities should be monitored to assess the true impact of the use of masks. (shrink)

The concept of simultaneous masking in visual field is discussed, in the light of classical examples, of the various kinds of the phenomenon, of a modal completion, of the figure/ground phenomenon, of ambiguous and reversible figures, of mimicry and camouflage and eventually of the complexity of the stimulus. There is some reference to masking in auditory field. The “reality” of the masked configuration is discussed, drawing the conclusion that it is perceptually unreal. The fact that the masking phenomenon cannot take (...) place without comparison between two perceptual acts – what we see at one moment and what we see a moment after LATER – and the fact that the masked configuration pops out with some surprise, lead to the conclusion that simultaneous masking in visual field is not a bare perceptual phenomenon, but a psychological process not unlike insight. (shrink)

In vision research metacontrast masking is a widely used technique to reduce the visibility of a stimulus. Typically, studies attempt to reveal general principles that apply to a large majority of participants and tend to omit possible individual differences. The neural plasticity of the visual system, however, entails the potential capability for individual differences in the way observers perform perceptual tasks. We report a case of perceptual learning in a metacontrast masking task that leads to the enhancement of two types (...) of adult human observers despite identical learning conditions. In a priming task both types of observers exhibited the same priming effects, which were insensitive to learning. Findings suggest that visual processing of target stimuli in the metacontrast masking task is based on neural levels with sufficient plasticity to enable the development of two types of observers, which do not contribute to processing of target stimuli in the priming task. (shrink)

Twelve subjects provided shape and orientation judgments for a set of projectively equivalent, variously rotated rectangles under three viewing conditions—monoptic, dichoptic, and binocular—with and without the presence of a pattern mask. In the absence of the mask, partial constancy was exhibited under the first two conditions and near perfect constancy under the binocular condition. Orientation was discriminated. Presence of the mask produced projective shape matching and diminished orientation discrimination. It is argued that the site of masking was postchiasmal, and the (...) results are related to previous work with pattern masking of projectively equivalent ellipses. (shrink)

Relative blindsight is said to occur when different levels of subjective awareness are obtained at equality of objective performance. Using metacontrast masking, Lau and Passingham reported relative blindsight in normal observers at the shorter of two stimulus-onset asynchronies between target and mask. Experiment 1 replicated the critical asymmetry in subjective awareness at equality of objective performance. We argue that this asymmetry cannot be regarded as evidence for relative blindsight because the observers’ responses were based on different attributes of the stimuli (...) at the two SOAs. With an invariant criterion content , there was no asymmetry in subjective awareness across the two SOAs even though objective performance was the same. Experiment 3 examined the effect of criterion level on estimates of relative blindsight. Collectively, the present results question whether metacontrast masking is a suitable paradigm for establishing relative blindsight. Implications for theories of consciousness are discussed. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe use of humor in advertisements has been the subject of numerous studies, most of which have emphasized humor’s effectiveness while neglecting the ethical issues that it often poses when used in advertising. In response, the authors look at the extent to which humor masks the ethical concerns inherent in offensive advertising. The authors examine advertisements brought before the Austrian Advertising Council, as well as the case-specific decisions made by councilors. With their analysis, they contribute to advertising ethics by turning (...) attention to an important organization in the practice of critiquing advertisements. (shrink)

In metacontrast masking target visibility is modulated by the time until a masking stimulus appears. The effect of this temporal delay differs across participants in such a way that individual human observers’ performance shows distinguishable types of masking functions which remain largely unchanged for months. Here we examined whether individual differences in masking functions depend on different response criteria in addition to differences in discrimination sensitivity. To this end we reanalyzed previously published data and conducted a new experiment for further (...) data analyses. Our analyses demonstrate that a distinction of masking functions based on the type of masking stimulus is superior to a distinction based on the target–mask congruency. Individually different masking functions are based on individual differences in discrimination sensitivities and in response criteria. Results suggest that individual differences in metacontrast masking result from individually different criterion contents. (shrink)

Having noted my intention to improve upon other statistical analyses of causal relatedness by providing theoretical means to distinguish cause and effect without reference to temporality [1], Professor Shrader argues [3] that the alternative model I offer falters “before the same sort of examples he had previously used to assail” these other analyses. Although the assailant seems both to have misunderstood the model in question and to have overestimated the effect of his counterexamples, his objections provide a welcome opportunity for (...) clarification. (shrink)

ABSTRACT A reflection on the “mask,” as a question of response and responsibility in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Starting from Justus Lipsius's _Monita et exempla politica _, this book offers a collection of essays dealing with the disputed Macchiavellian, Tacitean or Neostoic character of Lipsius's political thought, and its impact on the dynamics of political discourse in Early Modern Europe.