Unconscious vision in action

The dorsal visual processing stream has been suggested to be involved with the unconscious processing of visual information for visually guided actions. In this study, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was used to gate input into the dorsal visual processing stream by disrupting primary visual cortex (V1) function. Despite restricting geniculostriate processing contributions in the dorsal stream, consistent effects on reaching performance from unconscious visual events were nonetheless measured. These results suggest a functionally intact, albeit unconscious, projection to the dorsal pathway that bypasses V1 and implicates a functional input into the dorsal stream from the superior colliculus.