Numbers in the blind's "eye".
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.
Salillas
Elena
E
Department of Biology, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas, USA. Elena.Salillas@utsa.edu
Graná
Alessia
A
El-Yagoubi
Radouane
R
Semenza
Carlo
C
D000328:Adult; D001766:Blindness / Q000503:physiopathology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005071:Evoked Potentials; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged