A patient whose visual lobes in the brain were destroyed was able to navigate an obstacle course and recognize fearful faces subconsciously.

blind by two successive strokes

He zigzagged down the hall, sidestepping a garbage can, a tripod, a stack of paper and several boxes as if he could see everything clearly

most dramatic demonstration to date of so-called blindsight

the native ability to sense things using the brain’s primitive, subcortical — and entirely subconscious — visual system.

brain scans and magnetic resonance images to see the damage, finding no evidence of visual activity in the cortex

brain digests what comes through the eyes using two sets of circuits

emotional blindsight. When presented with images of fearful faces, he cringed subconsciously in the same way that almost everyone does, even though he could not consciously see the faces.

may learn to lean more heavily on such subconscious or semiconscious systems