Learning improves conscious access at the bottom, but not the top: Reverse hierarchical effects in perceptual learning and metacognition

Experience with visual stimuli can improve their perceptual performance, a phenomenon termed visual perceptual learning (VPL), but how does VPL shape our conscious experience of learned stimuli? VPL has been found to improve measures of metacognition, suggesting increased conscious stimulus accessibility. Such studies however, have largely failed to control objective task accuracy, which typically correlates with metacognition. Here, using a staircase method to control this confound, we investigated whether VPL improves the metacognitive accuracy of perceptual judgements. Across three consecutive days, subjects learned to discriminate faces based on either their identity or contrast. Holding