Retention of high tactile acuity throughout the life span in blindness

Legge, Gordon E.; Madison, Cindee; Vaughn, Brenna N.; Cheong, Allen M. Y.; Miller, Joseph C.

doi:10.3758/pp.70.8.1471

Cited by 123 publications

(137 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…2) are consistent with a number of previous studies (Brown & Stratton, 1925;Goldreich & Kanics, 2003;Legge et al, 2008;Stevens et al, 1996;Van Boven et al, 2000). Quantitatively, our results are quite similar to those of Goldreich and Kanics (2003;e.g., compare our results with their Fig.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

Blindness enhances tactile acuity and haptic 3-D shape discrimination

Norman

Bartholomew

2011

Atten Percept Psychophys

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This study compared the sensory and perceptual abilities of the blind and sighted. The 32 participants were required to perform two tasks: tactile grating orientation discrimination (to determine tactile acuity) and haptic threedimensional (3-D) shape discrimination. The results indicated that the blind outperformed their sighted counterparts (individually matched for both age and sex) on both tactile tasks. The improvements in tactile acuity that accompanied blindness occurred for all blind groups (congenital, early, and late). However, the improvements in haptic 3-D shape discrimination only occurred for the early-onset and lateonset blindness groups; the performance of the congenitally blind was no better than that of the sighted controls. The results of the present study demonstrate that blindness does lead to an enhancement of tactile abilities, but they also suggest that early visual experience may play a role in facilitating haptic 3-D shape discrimination.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

Blindness enhances tactile acuity and haptic 3-D shape discrimination

Norman

Bartholomew

2011

Atten Percept Psychophys

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“…Previous studies report superior tactile spatial acuity in blind people (Stevens et al, 1996;Van Boven et al, 2000;Goldreich and Kanics, 2003;Legge et al, 2008), but what causes this enhancement? The extraordinary reliance of blind people in general, and Braille readers in particular, on the sense of touch might drive acuity enhancement (tactile experience hypothesis).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tactile Spatial Acuity Enhancement in Blindness: Evidence for Experience-Dependent Mechanisms

Wong¹,

Gnanakumaran²,

Goldreich³

2011

J. Neurosci.

151

115

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Tactile spatial acuity is enhanced in blindness, according to several studies, but the cause of this enhancement has been controversial. Two competing hypotheses are the tactile experience hypothesis (reliance on the sense of touch drives tactile-acuity enhancement) and the visual deprivation hypothesis (the absence of vision itself drives tactile-acuity enhancement). Here, we performed experiments to distinguish between these two hypotheses. We used force-controlled grating orientation tasks to compare the passive (finger stationary) tactile spatial acuity of 28 profoundly blind and 55 normally sighted humans on the index, middle, and ring fingers of each hand, and on the lips. The tactile experience hypothesis predicted that blind participants would outperform the sighted on the fingers, and that Braille reading would correlate with tactile acuity. The visual deprivation hypothesis predicted that blind participants would outperform the sighted on fingers and lips. Consistent with the tactile experience hypothesis, the blind significantly outperformed the sighted on all fingers, but not on the lips. Additionally, among blind participants, proficient Braille readers on their preferred reading index finger outperformed nonreaders. Finally, proficient Braille readers performed better with their preferred reading index finger than with the opposite index finger, and their acuity on the preferred reading finger correlated with their weekly reading time. These results clearly implicate reliance on the sense of touch as the trigger for tactile spatial acuity enhancement in the blind, and suggest the action of underlying experience-dependent neural mechanisms such as somatosensory and/or cross-modal cortical plasticity.

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“…Among the various perceptual properties that characterize object surfaces, roughness has undoubtedly received the most attention from haptics researchers. The roughness percept reflects the properties of the surface touched in interaction with the manner in which Studies have typically shown a decline in spatial acuity on the fingertip with increasing age for both sighted and blind individuals (e.g., Goldreich & Kanics, 2003;VegaBermudez & Johnson, 2004); for a more detailed summary, see Table 1 in Legge, Madison, Vaughn, Cheong, and Miller (2008). Studies that have used more recent psychophysical procedures further reveal that tactile spatial acuity in blind subjects is typically better than in sighted subjects who have been matched for age (but see Grant, Thiagarajah, & Sathian, 2000).…”

Section: Haptic Perception Of Object and Surface Propertiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Most recently, however, Legge et al (2008) used two newly designed spatial-acuity charts that require active exploration of Braille-like dot patterns and raised Landolt rings ( Figure 3A). Their results confirmed earlier findings with sighted subjects-namely, a decline in tactile spatial acuity of almost 1% per year from 12 to 85 years (e.g., Stevens & Patterson, 1995); in contrast, the blind showed high tactile spatial acuity that did not decline with age and that was not limited to the finger used for reading Braille ( Figure 3B).…”

Section: Haptic Perception Of Object and Surface Propertiesmentioning

confidence: 99%