Abstract
Blind individuals show impairments for auditory spatial skills that require complex spatial representation of the environment. We suggest that this is partially due to the egocentric frame of reference used by blind individuals. Here we investigate the possibility of reducing the mentioned auditory spatial impairments with an audio-motor training. Our hypothesis is that the association between a motor command and the corresponding movement's sensory feedback can provide an allocentric frame of reference and consequently help blind individuals in understanding complex spatial relationships. Subjects were required to localize the end point of a moving sound before and after either 2-min of audio-motor training or a complete rest. During the training, subjects were asked to move their hand, and consequently the sound source, to freely explore the space around the setup and the body. Both congenital blind (N = 20) and blindfolded healthy controls (N = 28) participated in the study. Results suggest that the audio-motor training was effective in improving space perception of blind individuals. The improvement was not observed in those subjects that did not perform the training. This study demonstrates that it is possible to recalibrate the auditory spatial representation in congenital blind individuals with a short audio-motor training and provides new insights for rehabilitation protocols in blind people.
Highlights
The early loss of one sensory input influences the development of the other sensory modalities, e.g., loss of vision impairs audition in the case of blindness (Gori, 2015)
When performing an action sighted individuals merge the visual and the proprioceptive inputs to create a mental representation of their body movements
This is possibly associated with the evidence that congenitally blind individuals seem to process the spectral cues for sound localization differently than sighted individuals (Lewald, 2002; Voss et al, 2015)
Summary
The early loss of one sensory input influences the development of the other sensory modalities, e.g., loss of vision impairs audition in the case of blindness (Gori, 2015). Some congenital blind individuals show superior performance than blindfolded sighted individuals in discriminating auditory pitch (Gougoux et al, 2004) and relative distance (Ashmead et al, 1998; Voss et al, 2004; Kolarik et al, 2013a,b), creating spatial topographical maps (Tinti et al, 2006; Fortin et al, 2008), and mapping the auditory space in both the peri-personal and extra-personal environment (Lessard et al, 1998; Röder et al, 1999; Voss et al, 2004) This superior performance is especially visible in the case of sound localization in the horizontal plane. Orientation discrimination (Gori et al, 2010), and arm movement reproduction (Cappagli et al, 2015) result
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
