Blindsight

Abstract

Blindsight is the ability of patients with an impaired visual cortex to perform visually in their blind field without acknowledging that performance. This ability has been interpreted as a sign of the absence of phenomenal consciousness, and neuroscientific studies have extensively studied cases of it. Different proposals separate visual form recognition from motion perception, and attempt to show that either the former or the latter is solely responsible for blindsight performance. However, a review of current experimental evidence shows that a poor performance (on both form and motion) is accompanied by poor awareness. Blindsight cases do not influence the qualia debate, because they denote a severe visual performance deficit, and not because of a purportedly non-phenomenal nature of consciousness.

Acknowledgements

An early version of this paper was presented at the ‘Light-Image-Reality’ Topika workshop, Aegina, Greece (May 2003), organized by M. Kouzelis & P. Basakos. I would like to thank the organizers and all the participants for the ensuing discussions. The anonymous referees’ detailed comments, as well as the Editor's remarks, improved a lot the quality of the manuscript, and I am grateful to all of them. I would also like to thank Jeffery U. Darensbourg for his careful look at the manuscript language and syntax.