Enhanced verbal abilities in the congenitally blind

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Valeria Occelli, Emory University; Simon A Lacey, Emory University; Careese Stephens, Emory University; Lotfi B. Merabet, Harvard Medical School; Krish Sathian, Emory University
• Language: English
• Date: 2017-06-01
• Publisher: Springer Verlag (Germany)
• Publication Version: Author Accepted Manuscript (After Peer Review)
• Copyright Statement: © 2017, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg (outside the USA)
• Final Published Version (URL): http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00221-017-4931-6
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: Experimental Brain Research
• ISSN: 0014-4819
• Volume: 235
• Issue: 6
• Start Page: 1709
• End Page: 1718
• Grant/Funding Information: This work was supported by NIH grant R01 EY012440 to KS and NIH/NEI grant R01 EY019924 to LBM. Support to CS and KS from the Veterans Administration is also gratefully acknowledged
• Keywords: ADAPTIVE-CHANGES; Science & Technology; MRC PSYCHOLINGUISTIC DATABASE; SIGHTED CHILDREN; Neurosciences & Neurology; PERFORMANCE; Neurosciences; Digit span; WORKING-MEMORY; COGNITIVE-STYLE; COORDINATE SPATIAL RELATIONS; Imagery; FLUENCY; Memory; VISUAL EXPERIENCE; Life Sciences & Biomedicine; Spatial; SHORT-TERM-MEMORY
• Research Categories: Health Sciences, Rehabilitation and Therapy; Health Sciences, Opthamology; Psychology, General

Abstract

Numerous studies have found that congenitally blind individuals have better verbal memory than their normally sighted counterparts. However, it is not known whether this reflects superiority of verbal or memory abilities. In order to distinguish between these possibilities, we tested congenitally blind participants and normally sighted control participants, matched for age and education, on a range of verbal and spatial tasks. Congenitally blind participants were significantly better than sighted controls on all the verbal tasks but the groups did not differ significantly on the spatial tasks. Thus, the congenitally blind appear to have superior verbal, but not spatial, abilities. This may reflect greater reliance on verbal information and the involvement of visual cortex in language processing in the congenitally blind.