IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v395y1998i6699d10.1038_26228.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Early-blind human subjects localize sound sources better than sighted subjects

Author

Listed:
  • N. Lessard

    (Groupe de Recherche en Neuropsychologie Exprimentale, and Centre de Recherche en Sciences Neurologiques, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, Succ.Centre-ville)

  • M. Paré

    (Centre de Recherche en Sciences Neurologiques, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, Succ.Centre-ville)

  • F. Lepore

    (Groupe de Recherche en Neuropsychologie Exprimentale, and Centre de Recherche en Sciences Neurologiques, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, Succ.Centre-ville
    Centre de Recherche en Sciences Neurologiques, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, Succ.Centre-ville)

  • M. Lassonde

    (Groupe de Recherche en Neuropsychologie Exprimentale, and Centre de Recherche en Sciences Neurologiques, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, Succ.Centre-ville
    Centre de Recherche en Sciences Neurologiques, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, Succ.Centre-ville)

Abstract

Do blind persons develop capacities of their remaining senses that exceed those of sighted individuals? Besides anecdotal suggestions, two views based on experimental studies have been advanced1. The first proposes that blind individuals should be severely impaired, given that vision is essential to develop spatial concepts2. The second suggests that compensation occurs through the remaining senses, allowing them to develop an accurate concept of space3. Here we investigate how an ecologically critical function, namely three-dimensional spatial mapping, is carried out by early-blind individuals with or without residual vision. Subjects were tested under monaural and binaural listening conditions. We find that early-blind subjects can map the auditory environment with equal or better accuracy than sighted subjects. Furthermore, unlike sighted subjects, they can correctly localize sounds monaurally. Surprisingly, blind individuals with residual peripheral vision localized sounds less precisely than sighted or totally blind subjects, confirming that compensation varies according to the aetiology and extent of blindness4. Our results resolve a long-standing controversy in that they provide behavioural evidence that totally blind individuals have better auditory ability than sighted subjects, enabling them to compensate for their loss of vision.

Suggested Citation

  • N. Lessard & M. Paré & F. Lepore & M. Lassonde, 1998. "Early-blind human subjects localize sound sources better than sighted subjects," Nature, Nature, vol. 395(6699), pages 278-280, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:395:y:1998:i:6699:d:10.1038_26228
    DOI: 10.1038/26228
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/26228
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/26228?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kadjita Asumbisa & Adrien Peyrache & Stuart Trenholm, 2022. "Flexible cue anchoring strategies enable stable head direction coding in both sighted and blind animals," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-15, December.
    2. Liam J Norman & Caitlin Dodsworth & Denise Foresteire & Lore Thaler, 2021. "Human click-based echolocation: Effects of blindness and age, and real-life implications in a 10-week training program," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(6), pages 1-34, June.
    3. Takahiro Miura & Naoyuki Okochi & Junya Suzuki & Tohru Ifukube, 2023. "Binaural Listening with Head Rotation Helps Persons with Blindness Perceive Narrow Obstacles," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(8), pages 1-14, April.
    4. Daniel-Robert Chebat & Shachar Maidenbaum & Amir Amedi, 2015. "Navigation Using Sensory Substitution in Real and Virtual Mazes," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(6), pages 1-18, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:395:y:1998:i:6699:d:10.1038_26228. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.