Martinsen, M. M.; Senda, H.; Tamura, H.; Nakauchi, S.; Minami, T.

This study investigated how physical luminance and perceived brightness affect breakthrough time (BT) under continuous flash suppression (CFS). Experiment 1 examined whether the glare illusion, which increases subjective brightness without altering actual luminance, would shorten BT compared to physically identical controls. The results revealed no difference, suggesting that subjective brightness alone does not expedite emergence into awareness. Experiment 2 assessed whether the partial suppression of the illusion\'s inducers influenced detection speed and revealed that subjective brightness stimuli gained a BT advantage. Experiment 3 tested participants\' ability to discriminate real versus illusory brightness while stimuli remained suppressed; performance above chance for both conditions indicated that physical and perceived brightness cues were processed unconsciously. Together, these findings suggest that contextual brightness illusions are not simply lost below awareness, they can be discriminated in unconscious vision.