The Significant Impact of Blindsight Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi once said, “Control of consciousness determines the quality of life.” The idea that we are in control of our own consciousness, whether we are consciously aware of it or not, is a fascinating one; and it is even more fascinating when you take into consideration phenomenon like blindsight. Blindsight, according to Dictionary.com, is “the ability to respond to visual stimuli without having any conscious visual experience; it can occur after some forms of brain damage.” The phenomenon of blindsight has been studied for many years by many different researchers because they have been astounded as to how this is possible. The continued study of this phenomenon has led to many breakthroughs
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Blindsight, like stated above, is when a person who is blind can still accurately react to stimuli in their “blind” area. According to Lawrence Weiskrantz, blindsight is: “an example of ‘implicit’ processing’ – residual function in the absence of explicit knowledge- that has been found in virtually every cognitive neuropsychological syndrome,” (Weiskrantz 215). Blindsight occurs when there is a lesion, or cut, to the primary striate cortex. The striate cortex is also called the visual cortex or V1 for short. Many patients have only one half of their visual field damaged, but yet can still interact with stimuli in their damaged half. For example, if your left V1 was damaged and you couldn’t see in that visual field and I placed a couple of objects in that field, you wouldn’t be able to see it; yet, you would consciously know that they were there. Throughout many different studies, it has been shown that blindsight patients are able to correctly identify the objects at a greater rate than you would expect if someone were just simply guessing. People who experience blindsight are extremely stunned and amazed with their ability to identify these objects, even though they cannot see them. There are two different “parts” of your visual cortex. The first is described as being more primitive and is more like the visual cortex of animals like fish. The second is what controls our ability to see the world and to perceive all that is going on around us. If a patient is experiencing blindsight, then they have damaged the second part of the visual cortex. We still have that ability to access that first, more primitive, part of the visual
Blindsight, like stated above, is when a person who is blind can still accurately react to stimuli in their “blind” area. According to Lawrence Weiskrantz, blindsight is: “an example of ‘implicit’ processing’ – residual function in the absence of explicit knowledge- that has been found in virtually every cognitive neuropsychological syndrome,” (Weiskrantz 215). Blindsight occurs when there is a lesion, or cut, to the primary striate cortex. The striate cortex is also called the visual cortex or V1 for short. Many patients have only one half of their visual field damaged, but yet can still interact with stimuli in their damaged half. For example, if your left V1 was damaged and you couldn’t see in that visual field and I placed a couple of objects in that field, you wouldn’t be able to see it; yet, you would consciously know that they were there. Throughout many different studies, it has been shown that blindsight patients are able to correctly identify the objects at a greater rate than you would expect if someone were just simply guessing. People who experience blindsight are extremely stunned and amazed with their ability to identify these objects, even though they cannot see them. There are two different “parts” of your visual cortex. The first is described as being more primitive and is more like the visual cortex of animals like fish. The second is what controls our ability to see the world and to perceive all that is going on around us. If a patient is experiencing blindsight, then they have damaged the second part of the visual cortex. We still have that ability to access that first, more primitive, part of the visual