Fig. 1: Trial sequence, stimulus, and task.

Each trial was self-paced and began with a varied stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA) ranging from 0.1–1s. After which a dynamic flashing colored Mondrian pattern was presented to the dominant eye while the colored word prime was presented to the non-dominant eye. During 400 ms suppression period, the suppressed word was sandwiched by the Mondrian pattern by two frames at each end, leading to 333 ms presence. The 400-ms-on-400-ms-off pattern was repeated five times or until participants reported breakthrough. If breakthrough was reported, the trial ended immediately. If not, another colored word was presented immediately until response. Participants were instructed to name the word (Experiments 1, 3, and 5, 7) or color (Experiments 2, 4, 6, 8) of the target. A 2-alternative-force-choice location task was present at the end of each trial, participants were instructed to report the location of the suppressed prime. While the prime detection served as a subjective report of prime visibility, this location task served as a post-trial objective gauge of prime visibility. The prime was occasionally superimposed on the Mondrians (visible catch) or simply non-existent (blank catch). Refer to Table 2 for detailed prime-target combinations in all experiments. The prime and target were of different font sizes and presented on slightly jittered locations.