Early- and Late-Onset Blind Individuals Show Supra-Normal Auditory Abilities in Far-Space

摘要: Abstract Blind individuals manifest remarkable abilities in navigating through space despite their lack of vision. They have previously been shown to perform normally or even supra-normally tasks involving spatial hearing near [1, 2], a region that, however, can be calibrated with sensory-motor feedback. Here we show that blind not only properly map auditory beyond peri-personal environment but also demonstrate supra-normal performance when subtle acoustic cues for target location and distance must used carry out the task. Moreover, it is generally postulated such rest part on cross-modal cortical reorganizations [3–6], particularly immature brain, where important synaptogenesis still possible [7–9]. Nonetheless, first time late-onset subjects develop above-normal abilities, suggesting significant compensation occur adult.