Department of Psychology and Centre for Vision Research, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, ON, M3J 1P3, Canada.
Exp Brain Res. 2012 Feb;216(4):565-74. doi: 10.1007/s00221-011-2960-0. Epub 2011 Dec 1.
Some blind people are better at locating sounds than people with normal vision indicating cross-modal plasticity. People who have lost one eye have a unique form of visual deprivation that reduces visual afferent signals by half and can potentially also lead to cross-modal (as well as intra-modal) plasticity. To look for evidence of auditory-visual cross-modal compensation, we measured binaural and monaural sound localization in one-eyed people and compared them with normally sighted controls. One-eyed people showed significantly better binaural sound localization than controls in the central region of space (±78° from straight ahead), but they mislocalized sounds in the far periphery (on both the blind and intact side) by up to 15° towards the centre. One-eyed people showed significantly better monaural sound localization compared with controls. Controls' performance became asymmetric when they had one eye patched. Patching improved accuracy in the viewing field but decreased accuracy in the occluded field. These results are discussed in terms of cross-modal sensory compensation and the possible contribution of visual depth to interpreting sound localization cues.
一些盲人比视力正常的人更擅长定位声音，这表明存在跨模态可塑性。失去一只眼睛的人会经历一种独特的视觉剥夺，导致视觉传入信号减半，这也可能导致跨模态（以及同模态）可塑性。为了寻找听觉-视觉跨模态补偿的证据，我们测量了独眼人和正常视力对照者的双耳和单耳声源定位，并进行了比较。独眼人在空间中心区域（正前方±78°）的双耳声源定位明显优于对照组，但他们在远场（盲侧和正常侧）的声源定位错误高达 15°，向中心方向偏移。与对照组相比，独眼人在单耳声源定位方面表现出明显的优势。当对照组中的一只眼睛被遮蔽时，他们的表现变得不对称。遮蔽会提高视野中的准确性，但会降低被遮蔽视野中的准确性。这些结果是根据跨模态感觉补偿和视觉深度对解释声源定位线索的可能贡献来讨论的。
