Blind man found to have sixth sense.
Psychics claim to have a sixth sense, however, they do not allow themselves to undergo scientific testing to back up their claims. Occasionally though, a more credible claim is made where a seemingly inexplicable ability occurs in someone, such as the case of a completely blind man who is capable of seeing emotions in people's faces.
See aljazeera article: sixth sense
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, Director of the Centre for Brain and Cognition at the University of California (San Diego), whilst delivering a Reith lecture in 2003, explained the phenomenon known as “blindsight”:
The brain has thirty different areas that are involved with processing visual information; each area seems to have a specific function: seeing colours; motion; facial recognition, etc. These areas’ functions are worked out by the effects in patients who have sustained damage to the area due to strokes or accidents.
Visual information passes from the eyes to the various processing centres via two separate pathways: the “old” pathway, which is evolutionarily ancient and exists in the brain stem, called the superior colliculus; and the “new” pathway, which is evolutionarily more recent, which goes to the visual cortex in the back of the brain.
The old pathway is involved in the subconscious detection of motion, location and direction of stimuli. The new pathway is involved with seeing things at a conscious level: our awareness that we are seeing something.
People who are blind due to brain trauma have what is known as “cortical blindness”: their eyes are functional but they cannot process the information received from them.
It has been found that people with cortical blindness can, when asked, point to an object even though they genuinely cannot see it. This effect, blindsight, has been known for over one hundred years.
Visual information from the eyes takes both pathways through the brain as normal; however, the damaged visual cortex cannot process the information, hence the blindness. The old, unconscious pathway is still functioning normally and the information is processed and passed up to the higher brain centres in the parietal lobes which can then act upon it: in this case allowing the person to point to the object.
It is this unconscious processing of visual information that allows a person with cortical blindness to attain knowledge of an object, even though they cannot consciously perceive it.
The phenomenon of blindsight, or some closely related effect, is most likely the explanation of “Patient X’s” ability.
The scientists in the article seemed to be saying much the same thing; the term “sixth sense” probably being introduced for journalistic sensationalism: which completely altered the nature of the report.
