Auditory and auditory-tactile processing in congenitally blind humans
Abstract
Studying blind humans is an excellent opportunity to investigate how experience might shape auditory processing. In everyday life, blind humans rely more on auditory information than sighted humans to recognize people, localize events, or process language. A growing number of studies have provided evidence that the increased use of the auditory system results in compensatory behavior in the blind. Blind humans perform better in perceptual auditory tasks, like pitch or duration discrimination, and in auditory language and memory tasks. Neural plasticity at different levels of the auditory processing stream has been linked to these behavioral benefits. In everyday life, many events stimulate more than one sensory system. Multisensory research has cumulated evidence that the integration of information across modalities facilitates perception and action control. Neurophysiological correlates of multisensory interactions have been described for various subcortical and cortical areas. There is evidence that vision plays a pivotal role in setting up multisensory functions during ontogeny. This article summarizes evidence for a reorganization of multisensory brain areas and reduced crossmodal interactions on the behavioral level following congenital visual deprivation.
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Vision may be necessary for successful cross-calibration.
“Vision may be necessary for successful cross-calibration (Hötting & Röder, 2009; Occelli et al., 2013; Wallace et al., 2004).”
From Designing sensory-substitution devices: Principles, pitfalls and potential1 (2016) · cites this paper as Hötting & Röder, 2009
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Pitch discrimination in the early blind
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‘Visual’ Acuity of the Congenitally Blind Using Visual-to-Auditory Sensory Substitution
Striem-Amit, E., Guendelman, M., & Amedi, A. (2012) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0033136 · Cited by 117 · see citing works
Designing sensory-substitution devices: Principles, pitfalls and potential1
Kristjánsson, Á., Moldoveanu, A., Jóhannesson, Ó. I., Balan, O., Spagnol, S., Valgeirsdóttir, V. V., & Unnthorsson, R. (2016) · Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience · doi:10.3233/rnn-160647 · Cited by 116 · see citing works
“Vision may be necessary for successful cross-calibration (Hötting & Röder, 2009; Occelli et al., 2013; Wallace et al., 2004).”
BackgroundAuditory, tactile, and audiotactile information processing following visual deprivation
Occelli, V., Spence, C., & Zampini, M. (2013) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/a0028416 · Cited by 43 · see citing works
A Large Inclusive Study of Human Listening Rates
Bragg, D., Bennett, C., Reinecke, K., & Ladner, R. (2018) · Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3173574.3174018 · Cited by 43 · see citing works
- Authors
- Hötting, K., & Röder, B.
- Affiliations
- Universität Hamburg (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Hötting, Kirsten
- Venue
- Hearing Research
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2009-12
- Volume
- 258
- Issue
- 1-2
- Pages
- 165-174
- ISSN
- 0378-5955 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2153051391
- Cited by
- 120
- References
- 8
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 12 · 2015: 6 · 2014: 5 · 2013: 6 · 2012: 7
- FWCI
- 8.35
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Hearing Research (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
- Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Multisensory perception and integration
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Tactile and Sensory Interactions
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neuroscience and Music Perception
- Keywords
- congenital blindness, auditory processing, multisensory integration, cross-modal interaction, neuroplasticity, visual deprivation, auditory perception, tactile perception, auditory memory, pitch discrimination, duration discrimination, brain reorganization
- MeSH terms
- Acoustic Stimulation, Adaptation, Physiological, Auditory Perception, Blindness, Brain Mapping, Cerebral Cortex, Humans, Language, Memory, Neuronal Plasticity, Touch, Touch Perception
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