Examining the relationship between the ability to shift visuospatial attention and visual awareness using lateralized power spectra

A measure derived from EEG was used to study the largely unknown relationship between visuospatial attention and visual awareness. The aim of the current research was to examine whether individual differences in visual awareness thresholds could be predicted by different capacities in the covert shift visuospatial attention. Also we proposed that the allocation of visual attention would have an induced rather than an evoked nature. A combination between an endogenous attention orienting paradigm and backward masking was used with LPS applied on raw EEG as measure. The results indicate that there are individual differences in visual awareness and that those differences are related to the ability to allocate visuospatial attention. Furthermore the results indicate an induced nature of endogenous, covert shifts of attention