According to a news release from the University of Melbourne, a new study has discovered that people can reliably sense when a change has taken place, even when they cannot determine exactly what has taken place.

For instance, a person might sense a change in someone’s appearance but not be able to determine that the person had had a haircut or is wearing a different color hat.

According to Dr. Piers Howe from the Melbourne School of Psychological Science, the research is the first to reveal in a scientific study that people can reliably sense alterations that they cannot visually recognize.

“There is a common belief that observers can experience changes directly with their mind, without needing to rely on the traditional physical senses such as vision, hearing, taste, smell and touch to identify it. This alleged ability is sometimes referred to as a sixth sense or ESP,” lead researcher Howe noted.

“We were able to show that while observers could reliably sense changes that they could not visually identify, this ability was not due to extrasensory perception or a sixth sense,” he added.

Participants were shown pairs of color images, both of the same woman. In some cases, her appearance would be dissimilar in the two images. For instance, the woman might have a different hairstyle.

Each image was shown for 1.5 seconds with a one second break between them. After the final image, the participant was asked whether an alteration had taken place and, if so, to determine the alteration from a list of nine possible alterations.

Findings reveal that participants could generally identify when an alteration had taken place even when they could not determine exactly what had taken place. For instance, they might recognize that the two images had dissimilar amounts of red or green but not be able to utilize this information to recognize that the person had altered the color of their hat.

This led to the participant “sensing” that an alteration had taken place with being able to visually determine the alteration. Thus, the finding that participants can reliably sense when an alteration has taken place without being able to visually determine the alteration could be explained without appealing to an extrasensory mechanism.

The study’s findings are published in the journal PLOS ONE.