title: Numbers in the blind's "eye".
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Although lacking visual experience with numerosities, recent evidence shows that the blind perform similarly to sighted persons on numerical comparison or parity judgement tasks. In particular, on tasks presented in the auditory modality, the blind surprisingly show the same effect that appears in sighted persons, demonstrating that numbers are represented through a spatial code, i.e. the Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC) effect. But, if this is the case, how is this numerical spatial representation processed in the brain of the blind?
  
  
  RESULTS
  Here we report that, although blind and sighted people have similarly organized numerical representations, the attentional shifts generated by numbers have different electrophysiological correlates (sensorial N100 in the sighted and cognitive P300 in the blind).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These results highlight possible differences in the use of spatial representations acquired through modalities other than vision in the blind population.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas, USA. Elena.Salillas@utsa.edu
authors.forename: Elena
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Salillas
authors.forename: Alessia
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Graná
authors.forename: Radouane
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: El-Yagoubi
authors.forename: Carlo
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Semenza
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001766:Blindness / Q000503:physiopathology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005071:Evoked Potentials; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged