The newly sighted fail to match seen with felt
Abstract
Would a blind subject, on regaining sight, be able to immediately visually recognize an object previously known only by touch? We addressed this question, first formulated by Molyneux three centuries ago, by working with treatable, congenitally blind individuals. We tested their ability to visually match an object to a haptically sensed sample after sight restoration. We found a lack of immediate transfer, but such cross-modal mappings developed rapidly.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Congenitally blind children given sight can quickly learn to map shapes to prior touch-based representations.
“Empirical data supports this, showing that congenitally blind children given sight can quickly learn these abilities(Held et al., 2011).”
From The Platonic Representation Hypothesis (2024) · cites this paper as Held et al., 2011
Cites
An Essay concerning Human Understanding
Locke, J. (1690) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/oseo/instance.00018020 · Cited by 5,214 · see citing works
Humans integrate visual and haptic information in a statistically optimal fashion
Ernst, M. O., & Banks, M. S. (2002) · Nature · doi:10.1038/415429a · Cited by 4,844 · see citing works
The plastic human brain cortex
Pascual-Leone, A., Amedi, A., Fregni, F., & Merabet, L. B. (2005) · Annual Review of Neuroscience · doi:10.1146/annurev.neuro.27.070203.144216 · Cited by 1,929 · see citing works
Anatomical evidence of multimodal integration in primate striate cortex
Falchier, A., Clavagnier, S., Barone, P., & Kennedy, H. (2002) · The Journal of Neuroscience · doi:10.1523/jneurosci.22-13-05749.2002 · Cited by 892 · see citing works
Intermodal matching by human neonates
Meltzoff, A. N., & Borton, R. (1979) · Nature · doi:10.1038/282403a0 · Cited by 630 · see citing works
Childhood blindness in India: a population based perspective
Dandona, R. (2003) · British Journal of Ophthalmology · doi:10.1136/bjo.87.3.263 · Cited by 139 · see citing works
Visual Parsing After Recovery From Blindness
Ostrovsky, Y., Meyers, E. M., Ganesh, S., Mathur, U., & Sinha, P. (2009) · Psychological Science · doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02471.x · Cited by 125 · see citing works
Self-citationStack, G. J., & Morgan, M. J. (1979) · Philosophy and Phenomenological Research · doi:10.2307/2106332 · Cited by 100 · see citing works
Cross-Modal Transfer of Shape is Difficult to Demonstrate in One-Month-Olds
Maurer, D. M., Stager, C. L., & Mondloch, C. J. (1999) · Child Development · doi:10.1111/1467-8624.00077 · Cited by 72 · see citing works
Mandavilli, A. (2006) · Nature · doi:10.1038/441271a · Cited by 50 · see citing works
Cheselden, W. (1728) · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London · doi:10.1098/rstl.1727.0038 · Cited by 41 · see citing works
Visual‐Haptic Mapping and the Origin of Cross‐Modal Identity
Held, R. M. (2009) · Optometry and Vision Science · doi:10.1097/opx.0b013e3181a72999 · Cited by 31 · see citing works
Self-citation
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Maidenbaum, S., Abboud, S., & Amedi, A. (2014) · Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2013.11.007 · Cited by 230 · see citing works
Potential downside of high initial visual acuity.
Vogelsang, L., Gilad-Gutnick, S., Ehrenberg, E., Yonas, A., Diamond, S., Held, R., & Sinha, P. (2018) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1800901115 · Cited by 130 · see citing works
Self-citationDesigning 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
“The brain is capable of considerable reorganization of neural function (Held et al., 2011; Rauschecker, 1995), while younger brains are typically more flexible (Hubel & Wiesel, 1970; Merabet & Pascual-Leone, 2010).”
BackgroundIs there a future for sensory substitution outside academic laboratories?
Elli, G. V., Benetti, S., & Collignon, O. (2014) · Multisensory Research · doi:10.1163/22134808-00002460 · Cited by 90 · see citing works
Auditory, 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
The Platonic Representation Hypothesis
Huh, M., Cheung, B., Wang, T., & Isola, P. (2024) · arXiv · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2405.07987 · Cited by 35 · see citing works
“We find most metrics highly correlated with each other.”
A Review of Haptic Spatial Abilities in the Blind
Morash, V., Connell Pensky, A. E., Alfaro, A. U., & McKerracher, A. (2012) · Spatial Cognition & Computation · doi:10.1080/13875868.2011.599901 · Cited by 23 · see citing works
Advances in neuroscience, not devices, will determine the effectiveness of visual prostheses
Abbasi, B., & Rizzo, J. F. (2021) · Seminars in Ophthalmology · doi:10.1080/08820538.2021.1887902 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
- Authors
- Held, R., Ostrovsky, Y., de Gelder, B., Gandhi, T., Ganesh, S., Mathur, U., & Sinha, P.
- Affiliations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
- Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IN)
- Dr. Shroff’s Charity Eye Hospital (IN)
- Corresponding author
- Held, Richard
- Sinha, Pawan
- Venue
- Nature Neuroscience
- Published
- 2011-04-10
- Volume
- 14
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 551-553
- ISSN
- 1097-6256 (ISSN-L)
- 1546-1726
- OpenAlex
- W2159354660
- Cited by
- 284
- References
- 12
- Citations by year
- 2026: 40 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 47 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 16 · 2020: 45 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 14 · 2015: 11 · 2014: 13 · 2013: 15 · 2012: 20
- FWCI
- 9.23
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Update notices
- erratum (2011-08-26)
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Nature Neuroscience (publishedVersion)
- Research portal (Tilburg University) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- James S. McDonnell Foundation
- National Institutes of Health (5r21ey015521-02)
- National Eye Institute (R21-EY015521)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Tactile and Sensory Interactions
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Multisensory perception and integration
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
- Keywords
- cross-modal matching, congenital blindness, vision restoration, haptic perception, visual recognition, object recognition, Molyneux problem
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Blindness, Child, Choice Behavior, Female, Humans, Male, Photic Stimulation, Sensory Deprivation, Touch, Vision, Ocular, Visual Perception
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
