Visual input signaling threat gains preferential access to awareness in a breaking continuous flash suppression paradigm

•Accelerated access to awareness of suppressed visual input that signals threat.•Threatening and non-threatening visual input can be segregated non-consciously.•A novel paradigm allowed for selectively measuring the duration of suppression.•Fear conditioning allowed for manipulating threat independently of stimulus content.

Visual input that signals threat is inherently relevant for survival. Accordingly, it has been demonstrated that threatening visual input elicits faster behavioral responses than non-threatening visual input. Considering that awareness is a prerequisite for performing demanding tasks and guiding novel behavior, we hypothesized that threatening visual input would gain faster access to awareness than non-threatening visual input. In the present study, we associated one of two basic visual stimuli, that were devoid of intrinsic relevance (colored annuli), with aversive stimulation (i.e., electric shocks) following a classical fear conditioning procedure. In the subsequent test phase no more electric shocks were delivered, and a breaking continuous flash suppression task was used to measure how fast these stimuli would access awareness. The results reveal that stimuli that were previously paired with an electric shock break through suppression faster than comparable stimuli that were not paired with an electric shock.