QUANTA

Tuesday, April 12, 2011


Yes, congenital blind can learn to link vision and touch

April 12, 2011

Researchers at MIT have shown that the brain does not have an innate ability to connect different types of sensory input, but can quickly learn to do so.

The researchers tested five children with treatable forms of blindness to answer the question: could they visually distinguish between objects that they could previously only identify by touch? This question was first raised by scientist William Molyneux over 300 years ago.

Each patient was born blind and agreed in advance to participate in the study. Each had surgery to restore his or her vision through a humanitarian program called Project Prakash. (“Prakash” is the Sanskrit word for light.) Each was tested within 48 hours of surgery, shortly after his or her bandages were removed.

In the first test, the children were shown a novel object made from plastic parts, which was then taken away. Then they were shown two objects and asked to identify the original one. The test established that the children could see well enough to identify the relevant properties of the object, and that they understood the task.


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Publisher and/or Author and/or Managing Editor:__Andres Agostini ─ @Futuretronium at Twitter! Futuretronium Book at http://3.ly/rECc