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Updated: Aug 17, 2026

A Gaze-Contingent Display Framework for Perceptual Learning Research with Simulated Central Vision Loss
Published on: April 11, 2025
Visual sensing IS seeing: why "mindsight," in hindsight, is blind
Daniel J Simons1, Gabriel Nevarez, Walter R Boot
1University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 603 E. Daniel Street, Champaign, IL 61820, USA. dsimons@uiuc.edu
Abstract:
Faced with the surprising failure to notice large changes to visual scenes (change blindness), many researchers have sought evidence for alternative, nonattentional routes to change detection. A recent article in Psychological Science (Rensink, 2004) proposed a new, nonsensory "mindsight" mechanism to explain the finding that some subjects on some trials reported sensing the presence of a recurring change before they could explicitly identify it and without having a localizable visual experience of change. This mechanism would constitute a previously unknown mode of seeing that, as Rensink suggested, might be akin to a sixth sense. Its existence would have radical implications for the mechanisms underlying conscious visual experience. Provocative claims merit rigorous scrutiny. We rebut the existence of a mindsight mechanism by supporting a more mundane explanation: Some subjects take time to verify their initial conscious detection of changes.
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