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Related Experiment Videos

Tactile acuity is enhanced in blindness.

Daniel Goldreich1, Ingrid M Kanics

  • 1Department of Occupational Therapy, Rangos School of Health Sciences, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15282, USA. goldreich@duq.edu

The Journal of Neuroscience : the Official Journal of the Society for Neuroscience
|April 30, 2003
PubMed
Summary

Blind individuals exhibit significantly superior tactile acuity compared to sighted individuals. This enhanced tactile perception, independent of vision history, suggests crossmodal plasticity may compensate for vision loss.

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Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Sensory Perception
  • Human Physiology

Background:

  • Functional imaging reveals tactile activation in visual cortical areas of blind individuals.
  • Previous research on enhanced tactile acuity in blindness yielded controversial results.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To objectively compare passive tactile acuity between blind and sighted subjects.
  • To identify predictors of tactile acuity using advanced statistical methods.

Main Methods:

  • A fully automated grating orientation task was employed for tactile acuity assessment.
  • Multivariate Bayesian data analysis was utilized to analyze acuity predictors.

Main Results:

  • Blind subjects demonstrated significantly superior tactile acuity compared to sighted subjects.

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  • Tactile acuity was influenced by contact force, subject age, and gender, but not by vision history or Braille use.
  • The average blind subject's tactile acuity matched that of a sighted subject 23 years younger.

    • Conclusions:

    • Crossmodal plasticity is a likely mechanism underlying enhanced tactile acuity in blindness.
    • Tactile acuity is a complex sensory trait influenced by multiple factors beyond visual experience.