The paper by Anthony J. Marcel explores the relationship between visual masking and consciousness in visual word processing through five experiments. Experiment 1 examines subjects' ability to detect, recognize graphically, and recognize semantically a word preceded by a pattern mask, finding that performance declines as the mask onset asynchrony (SOA) decreases. Experiment 2 tests subjects' ability to choose between two words based on graphic or semantic similarity, revealing that subjects cannot selectively choose on each dimension, suggesting their ability is passively mediated. Experiment 3 investigates manual identification responses to color patches preceded by masked words, showing that color-congruent words facilitate reaction time while color-incongruent words delay it. Experiment 4 uses a lexical decision task to assess the effect of association between a critical letter string and a masked word, finding that the effect is equal in unmasked and pattern-masked cases but absent with energy masking. Experiment 5 examines the effect of repeating a masked word multiple times on subsequent lexical decisions, semantic relatedness, and detectability, suggesting that central pattern masking affects the availability of information rather than visual processing itself. The findings challenge the assumption that representations yielded by perceptual analysis are identical to and directly reflected by phenomenal percepts, emphasizing the importance of dissociating perceptual processing from conscious representation.The paper by Anthony J. Marcel explores the relationship between visual masking and consciousness in visual word processing through five experiments. Experiment 1 examines subjects' ability to detect, recognize graphically, and recognize semantically a word preceded by a pattern mask, finding that performance declines as the mask onset asynchrony (SOA) decreases. Experiment 2 tests subjects' ability to choose between two words based on graphic or semantic similarity, revealing that subjects cannot selectively choose on each dimension, suggesting their ability is passively mediated. Experiment 3 investigates manual identification responses to color patches preceded by masked words, showing that color-congruent words facilitate reaction time while color-incongruent words delay it. Experiment 4 uses a lexical decision task to assess the effect of association between a critical letter string and a masked word, finding that the effect is equal in unmasked and pattern-masked cases but absent with energy masking. Experiment 5 examines the effect of repeating a masked word multiple times on subsequent lexical decisions, semantic relatedness, and detectability, suggesting that central pattern masking affects the availability of information rather than visual processing itself. The findings challenge the assumption that representations yielded by perceptual analysis are identical to and directly reflected by phenomenal percepts, emphasizing the importance of dissociating perceptual processing from conscious representation.