PDF(Pubmed)
Abstract：
Early visual deprivation typically results in spatial impairments in other sensory modalities. It has been suggested that, since vision provides the most accurate spatial information, it is used for calibrating space in the other senses. Here we investigated whether sight restoration after prolonged early onset visual impairment can lead to the development of more accurate auditory space perception. We tested participants who were surgically treated for congenital dense bilateral cataracts several years after birth. In Experiment 1 we assessed participants\' ability to understand spatial relationships among sounds, by asking them to spatially bisect three consecutive, laterally separated sounds. Participants performed better after surgery than participants tested before. However, they still performed worse than sighted controls. In Experiment 2, we demonstrated that single sound localization in the two-dimensional frontal plane improves quickly after surgery, approaching performance levels of sighted controls. Such recovery seems to be mediated by visual acuity, as participants gaining higher post-surgical visual acuity performed better in both experiments. These findings provide strong support for the hypothesis that vision calibrates auditory space perception. Importantly, this also demonstrates that this process can occur even when vision is restored after years of visual deprivation.
摘要：
早期视觉剥夺通常会导致其他感觉模式的空间损伤。有人建议，因为视觉提供了最准确的空间信息，它是用于校准空间在其他意义上。在这里，我们调查了长时间的早发性视力障碍后的视力恢复是否会导致更准确的听觉空间感知的发展。我们测试了出生后几年接受手术治疗的先天性双侧致密性白内障的参与者。在实验1中，我们评估了参与者理解声音之间空间关系的能力，通过要求他们在空间上平分三个连续的，横向分离的声音。参与者在手术后的表现比之前测试的参与者更好。然而,他们的表现仍然比视力控制差。在实验2中，我们证明了二维额面中的单个声音定位在手术后迅速改善。接近视力控制的性能水平。这种恢复似乎是由视力介导的，由于获得较高术后视力的参与者在两个实验中表现更好。这些发现为视觉校准听觉空间感知的假设提供了强有力的支持。重要的是,这也表明，即使在多年的视觉剥夺后视力恢复，这一过程也可能发生。
