People who are blind perceive touch faster than those with normal vision
By ANIWednesday, October 27, 2010
WASHINGTON - A new study suggests that people who are blind from birth are able to detect tactile information faster than people with normal vision.
A group of researchers led by Daniel Goldreich, PhD, of McMaster University explored whether people who have a special reliance on a particular sense - in the way blind people rely on touch - would process that sense faster.
“Our findings reveal that one way the brain adapts to the absence of vision is to accelerate the sense of touch,” Goldreich said.
“The ability to quickly process non-visual information probably enhances the quality of life of blind individuals who rely to an extraordinary degree on the non-visual senses,” he said.
The authors tested the tactile skills of 89 people with sight and 57 people with various levels of vision loss.
And they found that 22 people who had been blind since birth performed better than both people with vision and people who had become blind later in life.
The findings suggest that early onset blindness leads to faster perception of touch. However, whether that advantage is due to the brain adapting to the absence of vision - a change called plasticity - or to a lifetime of practicing Braille is still unclear.
The study was published in the Oct. 27 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. (ANI)
