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Updated: Jul 18, 2026
07:14
A Method to Study Adaptation to Left-Right Reversed Audition
Published on: October 29, 2018
Pattern recognition using a device substituting audition for vision in blindfolded sighted subjects
C Poirier1, A De Volder, D Tranduy
1Neural Rehabilitation Engineering Laboratory, Université Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium.
Neuropsychologia
|November 23, 2006
Summary
Sensory substitution devices may create visual-like perceptions. This study found increased visual brain area activity after training, suggesting visual imagery plays a role in pattern recognition using sound-based visual substitution.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Sensory Perception
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Sensory substitution (SS) explores how the brain adapts to receiving information through non-native senses.
- Understanding the perceptual experience generated by SS devices is a key research question.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the neural mechanisms underlying pattern recognition using an auditory-visual sensory substitution device.
- To examine how brain activity changes with training in blindfolded sighted individuals.
Main Methods:
- Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to monitor brain activity.
- Participants performed pattern recognition tasks using an auditory-visual SS device.
- Brain activity was assessed before and after a short training period.
Main Results:
- Initially, pattern recognition engaged dorsal and ventral extra-striate visual areas.
- Following training, there was a significant increase in the recruitment of these visual areas.
- This suggests enhanced processing within the visual cortex.
Conclusions:
- Perception through auditory-visual SS devices might be inherently visual-like.
- Visual imagery processes are likely involved in pattern recognition via SS.
- The brain demonstrates plasticity in adapting visual areas for non-visual sensory input.
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