Given that we just said goodbye to another year, we are all pretty familiar with the hindsight (后见之明)．But have you heard of blindsight?

　　The phenomenon is the ability to see without having the visual brain hardware to actually see.It's been proven that monkeys have blindsight for navigating (移动) through space, but never in a human until now.

　　A recent paper in Current Biology describes a patient who lost his ability to see after suffering strokes that wiped out his visual cortex (大脑皮层), the brain area that processes visual input.His eyes and optic nerves remained intact, and the researchers confirmed that some information was being gathered via his still­functioning eyes.

　　So they gave him what many would think was the impossible test for the blind person.He had to navigate a hallway, around chairs and boxes, without his cane (手杖)．

　　He passed the test perfectly.What this implies is that visual information can reach the brain by routes other than the visual cortex.And this means we don't have to be conscious of the experience of seeing to capture and respond to visual stimuli.

　　"All the time, we are using the hidden resources of our brains and doing things we think we are unable to do，" said Beatrice de Gelder, one of the authors of the research.

　　Maybe we should give a new meaning to the old saying "I see"．