Cover Story  Many of us have had the experience of walking into
a familiar room--a friend's apartment, say--and immediately
sensing that something is different, without quite being able to
identify what that difference is. A moment later, the change
pops into focus: "Oh yeah, they moved the sofa."  Now one
researcher says that such sensations are evidence that people
can be aware of--and can use--visual information without
necessarily consciously "seeing." In a study published last year
in Psychological Science (Vol. 15, No. 1), University of British
Columbia psychologist and computer scientist Ronald Rensink,
PhD, postulates that we have a distinct, fast-acting mode of
visual perception that takes in visual input and leads us to
sense rather than see a change in a scene.  That system, which
Rensink calls "mindsight," could, he says, help explain why
people sometimes have an intuition or "sixth sense" about a
situation before they can consciously understand why.  "In a
way, it's like a 'first strike' system,"