Wiens' commentary makes two central claims: first, objective measures ignore and might therefore be incommensurate with the subjective nature of awareness; and second, objective measures are flawed because of the possibility that they do not exclusively measure explicit awareness.
Both 'subjective' and 'objective' tasks rely on observers' reports of conscious experience; neither ignores the subjective nature of awareness. Subjective thresholds are based on the report from each trial individually, whereas objective thresholds are based on cumulative experiences across many trials. Reported awareness on any given trial involves both subjects' explicit sensitivity to the target and their criterion to report it. If subjects adopt a conservative criterion, then on any given trial, they might not report a stimulus that was indeed consciously accessible. The goal of using an objective threshold is to avoid such errors on individual trials by showing that sensitivity to the target is absent; in the absence of sensitivity, decision criteria and confidence do not influence reports of awareness. In essence, the objective threshold is that level at which a stimulus is not reliably reportable rather than simply not reported.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
