Familiarity alters the bandwidth of perceptual awareness

Results from paradigms like change blindness and inattentional blindness suggest that observers are unaware of numerous aspects of the visual world. However, intuition suggests that perceptual experience is richer than these results suggest. Why does it feel like we see so much when the data suggests we see so little? One possibility stems from the fact that experimental studies always present observers with stimuli that they have never seen before. Meanwhile, when forming intuitions about perceptual experience, observers reflect on their experiences with scenes with which they are highly familiar (e.g., their office). Does prior experience with a scene change the bandwidth of perceptual awareness? Here, we measured how well observers noticed various changes to the periphery with stimuli that they either were or were not familiar with. We found that observers more easily noticed changes to the periphery with familiar stimuli. These results suggest that prior knowledge expands the bandwidth of perceptual awareness and challenge the idea that prior knowledge “fills-in” perception. Moreover, these findings highlight how prior knowledge plays an important role in determining the limits of perceptual experience and is an important factor to consider when reconciling the tension between empirical observation and personal introspection.