She says, “I really can’t tell you. I don’t see anything at all. I’m blind there.” You say, “I know, I know. But guess.” Finally, with exasperation, she guesses that the shape is a triangle. And she’s correct, well above what random chance would predict.35 Even though she’s blind, she can tease out a hunch—and this indicates that something in her brain is seeing. It’s just not the conscious part that depends on the integrity of her visual cortex. This phenomenon is called blindsight, and it teaches us that when conscious vision is lost, there are still subcortical factory workers behind the
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