Shiell Martha M, Champoux François, Zatorre Robert J
Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada ; BRAMS: International Laboratory for Brain, Music, and Sound Research, Montreal, Quebec, Canada ; CRBLM Centre for Research on Brain, Language, and Music, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
BRAMS: International Laboratory for Brain, Music, and Sound Research, Montreal, Quebec, Canada ; CRBLM Centre for Research on Brain, Language, and Music, Montreal, Quebec, Canada ; École d'orthophonie et d'audiologie, Université de Montréal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada ; Centre de recherche interdisciplinaire en réadaptation du Montréal métropolitain - Institut Raymond Dewar, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
PLoS One. 2014 Feb 28;9(2):e90498. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0090498. eCollection 2014.
In deaf people, the auditory cortex can reorganize to support visual motion processing. Although this cross-modal reorganization has long been thought to subserve enhanced visual abilities, previous research has been unsuccessful at identifying behavioural enhancements specific to motion processing. Recently, research with congenitally deaf cats has uncovered an enhancement for visual motion detection. Our goal was to test for a similar difference between deaf and hearing people. We tested 16 early and profoundly deaf participants and 20 hearing controls. Participants completed a visual motion detection task, in which they were asked to determine which of two sinusoidal gratings was moving. The speed of the moving grating varied according to an adaptive staircase procedure, allowing us to determine the lowest speed necessary for participants to detect motion. Consistent with previous research in deaf cats, the deaf group had lower motion detection thresholds than the hearing. This finding supports the proposal that cross-modal reorganization after sensory deprivation will occur for supramodal sensory features and preserve the output functions.
在聋人中，听觉皮层可以进行重组以支持视觉运动处理。尽管长期以来人们一直认为这种跨模态重组有助于增强视觉能力，但先前的研究一直未能确定特定于运动处理的行为增强。最近，对先天性聋猫的研究发现了视觉运动检测方面的增强。我们的目标是测试聋人和听力正常人之间是否存在类似差异。我们测试了16名早期和重度聋人参与者以及20名听力正常的对照组。参与者完成了一项视觉运动检测任务，在该任务中，他们被要求确定两个正弦光栅中哪一个在移动。移动光栅的速度根据自适应阶梯程序变化，使我们能够确定参与者检测运动所需的最低速度。与先前对聋猫的研究一致，聋人群体的运动检测阈值低于听力正常者。这一发现支持了以下观点：感觉剥夺后的跨模态重组将发生在超模态感觉特征上，并保留输出功能。
