Despite denying any conscious awareness of the bar, the participant could answer correctly at a level well above chance. The participant even showed evidence of being able to pay attention to the bar – they were faster to respond when an arrow (placed in a healthy area of their visual field) correctly indicated the location of the bar.

The most popular interpretation (though not the only one) is that people with blindsight can see these objects, but not see them consciously. They see what is there, but it all goes on unconsciously, below their awareness.

The phenomenon of inattentional blindness seems to show you can see without the information crossing into your consciousness. Anyone can experience inattentional blindness. The phenomenon has been known about for a long time, but we can most easily get a handle on it by looking at a well-known experiment reported in 1999.