LAUSR

Despite the close relationship between visual working memory (VWM) and visual awareness, the question of how these two constructs interact with each other is still under debate. The current study aimed to further address this issue by investigating whether and how visual awareness is influenced by VWM load. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to perform a motion-induced blindness (MIB) task while simultaneously memorizing different numbers of items in VWM. The results indicated that the latency of MIB was prolonged gradually as the VWM load increased, revealing a linear trend in the modulation effect of VWM load on visual awareness. Experiments 2 and 3 tested the other potential explanations and validated the initial finding by confirming that VWM load was indeed responsible for the observed effect on visual awareness. These findings have important implications for a better understanding of the relationship between VWM and visual awareness.