title: Visual experience influences the interactions between fingers and numbers.
abstract: Though a clear interaction between finger and number representations has been demonstrated, what drives the development of this intertwining remains unclear. Here we tested early blind, late blind and sighted control participants in two counting tasks, each performed under three different conditions: a resting condition, a condition requiring hands movements and a condition requiring feet movements. In the resting condition, every sighted and late blind spontaneously used their fingers, while the majority of early blind did not. Sighted controls and late blind were moreover selectively disrupted by the interfering hand condition, while the early blind who did not use the finger-counting strategy remained unaffected by the interference conditions. These results therefore demonstrate that visual experience plays an important role in implementing the sensori-motor habits that drive the development of finger-number interactions.
authors.affiliation: Institut de Recherche en Sciences Psychologiques (IPSY), Centre de Neuroscience Système et Cognition (NeuroCS), Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium; Centre de Recherche en Neuropsychologie et Cognition (CERNEC), Université de Montréal, Canada. Electronic address: virginie.crollen@uclouvain.be.
authors.forename: Virginie
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Crollen
authors.affiliation: Institut de Recherche en Sciences Psychologiques (IPSY), Centre de Neuroscience Système et Cognition (NeuroCS), Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium.
authors.forename: Marie-Pascale
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: NoëL
authors.affiliation: Institut de Recherche en Sciences Psychologiques (IPSY), Centre de Neuroscience Système et Cognition (NeuroCS), Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium.
authors.forename: Xavier
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Seron
authors.affiliation: Institut de Recherche en Sciences Psychologiques (IPSY), Centre de Neuroscience Système et Cognition (NeuroCS), Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium.
authors.forename: Pierre
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Mahau
authors.affiliation: Centre de Recherche en Neuropsychologie et Cognition (CERNEC), Université de Montréal, Canada.
authors.forename: Franco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Lepore
authors.affiliation: Centre for Mind/Brain Science, University of Trento, Italy. Electronic address: olivier.collignon@unitn.it.
authors.forename: Olivier
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Collignon
mesh_terms: D001766:Blindness / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005385:Fingers; D006801:Humans; D011340:Problem Solving / Q000502:physiology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: Blindness; Finger-counting; Grounded cognition