Visual-haptic mapping and the origin of cross-modal identity.
We found that congenitally blind people who gain sight initially fail to identify seen objects with their felt versions: a negative answer to the Molyneux question. However, they succeed in doing so after a few days of sight. We argue that this rapid learning resembles that of adaptation to rearrangement in which the experimentally produced separations of seen and felt perceptions of objects are rapidly reunited by the process called capture. Moreover, the original ability to identify objects across modalities by the neonate may be assured by the same process.
Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA. heldd@neco.edu
Richard
R
Held
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D001766:Blindness / Q000151:congenital* / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007858:Learning; D010465:Perception; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D020127:Recovery of Function; D013997:Time Factors; D014110:Touch; D014785:Vision, Ocular