# Iconic versus working memory metacognition to evaluate the richness of perception: a registered report

## TL;DR

This study compares how well people are aware of their visual memory versus working memory, suggesting that visual perception might not be as rich as it feels.

## Contribution

The study introduces a novel comparison of metacognitive sensitivity between iconic memory and working memory.

## Key findings

- Iconic memory capacity is higher than working memory capacity.
- Metacognitive sensitivity is higher in working memory despite similar performance.
- Iconic memory is associated with lower confidence, indicating less conscious accessibility.

## Abstract

The high capacity of human iconic memory (IM) has been taken as evidence that visual experience is rich and detailed, as introspection suggests. Opponents to this view argue instead that this impression is illusory, with conscious access being mostly limited to what we can attend to. To provide evidence of either view, in this registered report we compared metacognitive sensitivity levels between IM and working memory (WM) representations. The rationale was that, if pre-attentive IM information is as consciously accessible as attention-bounded WM information, metacognitive sensitivity should be comparable across the two memory systems. Replicating classic findings, our results showed that IM capacity exceeded WM capacity. Nevertheless, and despite matched performance, metacognitive sensitivity was higher in WM. We further examined whether reduced metacognition in IM could be explained by inflation—the tendency to overestimate perceptual richness—by comparing confidence levels across the two memory conditions. Pre-registered analyses showed no evidence of inflation, as IM was associated with lower confidence. Our findings suggest that IM supports identification with less consciously accessible information than WM, challenging rich-view interpretations of conscious perception.