“Conscious Researchers in Unconscious Research”: A Motivational Revisit of Issues, Resolutions, and Applied Awareness in Backward Masking using Faces

In this manuscript, we provide a discourse of issues and resolutions that we should be conscious of when doing research in the unconscious using backward masking of faces. First, we revisit subjects that are contributing for understanding the unconscious as a concept. These involve historical episodes and early episodes of controversial experimentation. Subsequently, we revisit and discuss topical concepts, such as the metrics and the statistical analyses applied for assessing perception during backward masking. We proceed to discussing novel and developing issues relating to masked visual processing and contemporary psychophysics. We empirically illustrate how these issues bias experimental research. We present and empirically illustrate resolutions for these issues, such as the application of signal detection theory metrics, Bayesian analysis and advances in the psychophysics of masked presentations using faces. We assess whether and the extent to which we are truly conscious of established and known, and novel and developing issues and resolutions. We make use of backward masking as a rally point to emphasize the importance of conscious scholarly and methodological awareness for undertaking and advancing research in the unconscious.