Involuntary attention enhances identification accuracy for unmasked low contrast letters using non-predictive peripheral cues

•Cueing effects with involuntary attention are not dependent on backward masking.•Accuracy performance enhancement was not due to response bias.•Four experiments were conducted across the full psychometric function of contrasts.•Non-predictive cues elicit improved accuracy for involuntary attention in 110-170 ms.•A cue can cause masking, changing the psychometric function and weakening the post-mask.

There is controversy regarding whether or not involuntary attention improves response accuracy at a cued location when the cue is non-predictive and if these cueing effects are dependent on backward masking. Various perceptual and decisional mechanisms of performance enhancement have been proposed, such as signal enhancement, noise reduction, spatial uncertainty reduction, and decisional processes. Herein we review a recent report of mask-dependent accuracy improvements with low contrast stimuli and demonstrate that the experiments contained stimulus artifacts whereby the cue impaired perception of low contrast stimuli, leading to an absence of improved response accuracy with unmasked stimuli. Our experiments corrected these artifacts by implementing an isoluminant cue and increasing its distance relative to the targets. The results demonstrate that cueing effects are robust for unmasked stimuli presented in the periphery, resolving some of the controversy concerning cueing enhancement effects from involuntary attention and mask dependency. Unmasked low contrast and/or short duration stimuli as implemented in these experiments may have a short enough iconic decay that the visual system functions similarly as if a mask were present leading to improved accuracy with a valid cue.