What is "blindsight"

n. The responsivity shown by some blind or partially blind people to visual stimuli of which they are not consciously aware.

Blindsight is the ability of people who are cortically blind due to lesions in their striate cortex, also known as primary visual cortex or V1, to respond to visual stimuli that they do not consciously see. The majority of studies on blindsight are conducted on patients who have the "blindness" on only one side of their visual field. Following the destruction of the striate cortex, patients are asked to detect, localize, and discriminate amongst visual stimuli that are presented to their blind side, often in a forced-response or guessing situation, even though they don't consciously recognise the visual stimulus. Research shows that blind patients achieve a higher accuracy than would be expected from chance alone. Type 1 blindsight is the term given to this ability to guess—at levels significantly above chance—aspects of a visual stimulus (such as location or type of movement) without any conscious awareness of any stimuli. Type 2 blindsight occurs when patients claim to have a feeling that there has been a change within their blind area—e.g. movement—but that it was not a visual percept. Blindsight challenges the common belief that perceptions must enter consciousness to affect our behavior; it shows that our behavior can be guided by sensory information of which we have no conscious awareness. It may be thought of as a converse of the form of anosognosia known as Anton–Babinski syndrome, in which there is full cortical blindness along with the confabulation of visual experience.

Blindsight is a novel by American writer Robin Cook, published by G. P. Putnam's Sons in 1992. Like most of Cook's other work, it is a medical thriller. This story introduces New York City pathologist Laurie Montgomery as being new to the medical examiner's office. She uncovers a series of drug overdoses and gangland-style murders with a grisly twist.

Blindsight is a 2006 documentary film directed by Lucy Walker and produced by Sybil Robson Orr for Robson Entertainment. It premiered at 2006 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in the category Real to Reel.

Set against the breathtaking backdrop of the Himalayas, Blindsight follows six Tibetan teenagers on their journey to climb the 23,000 foot Lhakpa Ri mountain in the shadow of Mount Everest. A dangerous journey soon becomes a seemingly impossible challenge made all the more remarkable by the fact that the teenagers are blind. The children are at times feared by their parents, scorned by villagers and deemed sinners by devout followers of Buddhism, and believed to be cursed. Helped by Sabriye Tenberken — a blind German social worker who established the first school for the blind in Lhasa — the students invite the famous blind mountain climber Erik Weihenmayer to visit their school after learning about his climb to the summit of Everest. Erik arrives in Lhasa and helps the students and their educators climb higher than they have ever been before.

Blindsight is a hard science fiction novel by Canadian writer Peter Watts, published by Tor Books in 2006. It garnered nominations for a Hugo Award for Best Novel, a John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, and a Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. The novel follows a crew of astronauts sent out as the third wave, following two series of probes, to investigate a trans-Neptunian Kuiper belt comet dubbed 'Burns-Caulfield' that has been found to be transmitting an unidentified radio signal to an as-yet unknown destination elsewhere in the solar system, followed by their subsequent first contact. The novel explores questions of identity, consciousness, free will, artificial intelligence, neurology, game theory as well as evolution and biology. Blindsight is available online under a Creative Commons license. Its sequel Echopraxia came out in 2014.

Blindsight is a neurological phenomenon.

Blindsight may also refer to:

• Blindsight (Cook novel), a 1992 novel written by Robin Cook
• Blindsight (film), a 2006 documentary film directed by Lucy Walker
• Blindsight (Watts novel), a 2006 novel written by Peter Watts
• Blindsight, a 2005 novel written by Maurice Gee
• Blindsighted, a 2002 novel written by Karin Slaughter