title: The newly sighted fail to match seen with felt.
abstract: Would a blind subject, on regaining sight, be able to immediately visually recognize an object previously known only by touch? We addressed this question, first formulated by Molyneux three centuries ago, by working with treatable, congenitally blind individuals. We tested their ability to visually match an object to a haptically sensed sample after sight restoration. We found a lack of immediate transfer, but such cross-modal mappings developed rapidly.
authors.affiliation: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. heldd@neco.edu
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Held
authors.forename: Yuri
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ostrovsky
authors.forename: Beatrice
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: de Gelder
authors.forename: Beatrice
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: deGelder
authors.forename: Tapan
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Gandhi
authors.forename: Suma
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ganesh
authors.forename: Umang
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Mathur
authors.forename: Pawan
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Sinha
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001766:Blindness / Q000151:congenital / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D002755:Choice Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D012683:Sensory Deprivation / Q000502:physiology; D014110:Touch / Q000502:physiology*; D014785:Vision, Ocular / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*