Ever get the feeling you have extrasensory perception, or ESP — a “sixth sense” that gives you powers of perception that transcend the familiar five senses?
Well, you’re wrong about that.

A new study, published online Jan. 13 in the journal PLOS ONE, shows that there’s simply no such thing as a sixth sense.

Didn’t see that coming, huh?

“People are correct in believing that they have an ability to sense changes in their environment even when they cannot verbally identify what those changes are”, study co-author Dr. Piers Howe, a psychology professor at the University of Melbourne in Australia, told The Huffington Post in an email. “It is just that this ability is not a quasi-magical sixth sense. It can be explained in terms of known visual processes”.

In the study, 10 men and women between the ages of 19 and 43 were given brief glimpses of “before” and “after” photos of the same woman. In some cases, the “after” photo was the same as the “before.” In others, one of the woman’s features was altered — for example, the color of her hair or lipstick.

The men and women were asked whether the photos were the same or different. If they noticed a change, they were asked to identify the change from a list of options. How good were they at noticing changes? Not bad! They picked up on the altered photos around 73 percent of the time. But in some of these trials, even though they detected a change, they could not pinpoint the difference.

“What people were doing was processing information that they couldn’t verbalize but were picking up on, often subconsciously”, Howe told The Guardian. And that explains the feeling of ESP – instead of having a “sixth sense”, our sense of vision may detect a change in our environment or someone’s appearance while we are not directly focusing our attention on it.

“It’s a bit like an abstract painting”, Howe said. “It doesn’t depict anything you can label, such as a sea or mountain, but you can still get a lot of information on what’s going on”. (1)

It is really laughable how easily we can discredit an idea based on another idea. People who believe in NOTHING, tend to easily ridicule the beliefs of others, no matter how many the indications in favor of them. Here a visual test serves as a “proof” for the non-existence of something which has nothing to do with it! An explanation for something provides an explanation for something else. Those who want to limit themselves in the boundaries of their bodies can do so as they wish. But stopping others from reaching their potential is purely idiotic and bad. And will not even start listing the articles I have written about the subject of consciousness (see here for a sample).

Believe in nothing. Or believe in something.

But don’t you ever believe you believe in the right thing!

Because my sixth sense tells me I will slap you in the face if you do…