Early correlates of visual awareness are affected by self-related information

Self-related cues, most notably one's own face, are highly salient and confer processing advantages at both conscious and unconscious levels. Whether such self-related information and stimulus salience modulate the earliest electroencephalography (EEG) correlate of visual awareness, the visual awareness negativity (VAN), remains unknown. In this study, we examined whether self-related information influences the amplitude, latency, and topography of the VAN. Thirty-six participants performed a backward masking task while an EEG was recorded as viewing either their own or a familiar face under masked and unmasked conditions. VAN was computed for each identity by subtracting unaware from aware face-specific trials. Results showed that VAN amplitude was greater during self-face perception, specifically over the right hemisphere. Moreover, VAN was larger at parieto-occipital than at occipital electrodes. These findings indicate that stimulus salience related to self-information directly impacts the earliest neural correlates of visual awareness. Such an effect may reflect enhanced perceptual or attentional mechanisms triggered by self-related content. This suggests either that early awareness correlates are embedded within perceptual and attentional dynamics that shape conscious access, or that the VAN does not constitute a purely content-independent correlate of consciousness.