Further evidence that congenitally blind participants react faster to auditory and tactile spatial targets.
Congenital blindness is one of the rare human models to explore the role of experience-driven cross-modal compensation after early sensory deprivation. We re-examined spatial attention abilities in congenitally blind participants and sighted controls using a paradigm comparable to the one of our previous study (Collignon, Renier, Bruyer, Tranduy, & Veraart, 2006), except that this time the auditory and tactile stimuli were now presented in sequence. Although both groups performed the task with similar accuracy, we observed that blind participants had shorter reaction times than sighted controls for the detection of spatial targets in both sensory modalities. Moreover, this finding held true for both the selective and divided attention conditions. These results not only confirm previous reports on the superiority of the blind during auditory and tactile attention tasks, but also broaden our knowledge of the mechanisms underlying cross-modal compensation.
Collignon
Olivier
O
Institute of Neuroscience, Neural Rehabilitation Engineering Laboratory, Universite Catholique de Louvain. olivier.collignon@uclouvain.be
De Volder
Anne G
AG
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D001766:Blindness / Q000151:congenital* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D002755:Choice Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D012684:Sensory Thresholds / Q000502:physiology; D013028:Space Perception; D014110:Touch / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult