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This study examines whether temporarily disrupting reality monitoring in healthy participants affects conscious access to visual stimuli. While research on psychosis (e.g., Berkovitch et al., 2021) suggests that delayed sensory ignition leads to an increased masking threshold, we investigate whether a similar effect can be induced in non-clinical populations. Using a deception-based paradigm, participants were led to believe that an inactive transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) device could cause visual distortions. We measured their masking threshold before and after this manipulation and assessed their perceptual confidence. We hypothesize (1) an increased masking threshold in the tDCS condition due to altered reality monitoring and (2) a correlation between perceptual certainty and conscious access. These findings may provide insights into the cognitive mechanisms linking perception, metacognition, and reality monitoring.

This is the study 2 under an overarching project which explores the potential ecological, cultural (psychological and societal) variables related to people's preferences of good life types. This is an exploratory study to explore the potential ecological, cultural (psychological and societal) variables related to people's choice of a "certainty driven (i.e. intolerance of uncertainty)" lifestyle or embracing a life with uncertainty.