What the hand can’t tell the eye: illusion of space constancy during accurate pointing

When we press an elevator button or pick up a coffee cup, different visual information is used to guide our reach and to form our conscious experience of these objects. But can the information guiding our hand be brought into awareness? The fact that we can see and feel our own hand in action suggests that it might be possible. However, the dual visual systems theory claims that on-line control of movement is governed by the dorsal stream of visual processing, which is largely unconscious. Two experiments are presented as strong tests of the hypothesis that the visual information guiding on-line pointing in healthy human adults is inaccessible for conscious report. Results show that participants are incapable of consciously accessing the information used in pointing, even though they can see and feel their hands in action and accurate performance depends on it.