 It is only narratively insignificant differences that go unnoticed in the change-blindness paradigm. Change blindness effects might therefore be taken as showing, not that there is no consciousness in the absence of attention, but that there is consciousness in the absence of attention, the contents of which are restricted to the scene’s overall gist. There are difficulties in adjudicating between these two interpretations experimentally. When features of gist do seem to be perceived, in the apparent absence of attention, the defender of the claim that attention is necessary for consciousness may reply by claiming that attention has been paid to these items, either in a dispersed, non-focal way (Prettyman, 2013), or because these features are briefly and involuntarily attention-catching (Prinz, 2012, p. 119). Without an experimental operationalization of complete inattention, these rival interpretations cannot be ruled out, with the result that empirical debates about the extent of consciousness beyond attention are currently in something of deadlock, with experimenters being able to claim only to have demonstrated perception in the ‘near absence’ of attention (Li et al., 2002, Reddy et al., 2004, Reddy et al., 2006), and so providing only inconclusive support to the hypothesis that attention and consciousness are dissociable (Koch &amp; Tsuchiya, 2007).