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On October 9th, we reported that cats born deaf develop enhanced vision. Now researchers find that blind people perceive touch faster than do those with sight. The work is in the Journal of Neuroscience. [Daniel Goldreich et al., citation to come.]
Volunteers who were sighted or who had varying levels of vision loss were asked to sense the movements of a small probe tapped against the tips of their index fingers. Everyone did well distinguishing light taps from stronger taps.
But when a light tap was followed almost instantly by a big, long-lasting vibration, those who had been blind since birth perceived each touch much better than did the sighted volunteers or those with only partial vision loss.
The researchers also varied the period between the tap and the vibration, and then measured the minimum separation time needed for participants to perceive the two separately. And congenitally blind people needed less time than anyone else. They were also the fastest Braille readers in the group.
The study suggests that the brain adapts to early blindness with a faster perception of touch. But the researchers admit that a lifetime of practicing Braille could also get the credit.
—Steve Mirsky
[The above text is an exact transcript of this podcast.]
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5 Comments
Add CommentAs I recall, at around 6 years of age the developing brain eliminates unused inherent brain circuitry, causing those whose learned language does not include the 'R' sound, for example, to lose the ability to pronounce it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps those who are blinded before this trimming process occurs lose visual function, allowing neurons initially allocated to visual processes to be reallocated to other high order functions, such as hearing, touch, smell, etc.
In this case, those who are blinded after the trimming process is complete would retain the original neuron allocations to visual processes.
Does this support my contention that blind individuals were responsible for cave art and deaf responsible for the first music?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo deaf people also have a better sense of touch?
And what about their respective sense of balance? - proprioceptive senses?
Could it be that it is not the sense of touch that is speeded up in the blind but rather that in fully sighted individuals the sense of touch is slowed down to subordinate it to the sense of sight.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA separate article suggests that the sense of touch can alone correct typographical errors in the fully sighted. Is this because the sense of touch is speeded up in typists so that it supervenes upon the sense of vision when typing.
i.e. do typist perform the same as blind individuals in touch tests using similar tactile cues to those arising in typing?
All this is rather suggestive of a large test program to unravel the synesthetic roles of individual senses in specific tasks.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAdd in the abilities of natural synesthetes and the effects of the feelspace belt and vOICe device and the mind boggles at the possibilities of engineering human abilities in conjunction with sensory augmentation devices and 'new' senses and one goes beyond science fiction.
Are blind touch typists faster at typing?
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