Visual processing varies dramatically across the visual field. These differences start in the
retina and continue all the way to the visual cortex. Despite these differences in processing …

Highlights•Covert attention improves sensory processing in many visual tasks.•Covert
attention also alters the appearance of visual information.•Many spatial and temporal …

People are often aware of their mistakes, and report levels of confidence in their choices that
correlate with objective performance. These metacognitive assessments of decision quality …

Human perceptual decisions are often described as optimal. Critics of this view have argued
that claims of optimality are overly flexible and lack explanatory power. Meanwhile …

Does attention alter appearance? This critical issue, debated for over a century, remains
unsettled. From psychophysical evidence that covert attention affects early vision—it …

In Consciousness We Trust is a synthesis of Hakwan Lau's 20-year research programme
exploring the neuroscience of consciousness. Discussing studies from his own laboratory …

Perceptual decisions are better when they take uncertainty into account. Uncertainty arises
not only from the properties of sensory input but also from cognitive sources, such as …

Humans can meaningfully report their confidence in a perceptual or cognitive decision. It is
widely believed that these reports reflect the Bayesian probability that the decision is correct …

Human metacognition, or the capacity to introspect on one's own mental states, has been
mostly characterized through confidence reports in visual tasks. A pressing question is to …

Despite the tangible progress in psychological and cognitive sciences over the last several
years, these disciplines still trail other more mature sciences in identifying the most important …