Ashmead D H, Wall R S, Ebinger K A, Eaton S B, Snook-Hill M M, Yang X
Vanderbilt Bill Wilkerson Center for Otolaryngology and Communication Sciences, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN 37232-8700, USA.
Perception. 1998;27(1):105-22. doi: 10.1068/p270105.
A study is reported of the effect of early visual experience on the development of auditory space perception. The spatial hearing of thirty-five children with visual disabilities (twenty-two with congenital total blindness) was compared with that of eighteen sighted children and seventeen sighted adults. The tests provided a comprehensive assessment of spatial-hearing ability, including psychophysical estimates of spatial resolution in the horizontal, vertical, and distance dimensions, as well as measures of reaching and walking to the locations of sound sources. The spatial hearing of the children with visual disabilities was comparable to or somewhat better than that of the sighted children and adults. This pattern held even when the group with visual disabilities was restricted to those children with congenital total blindness; in fact, some of those children had exceptionally good spatial hearing. These findings imply that the developmental calibration of human spatial hearing is not dependent on a history of visual experience. It seems likely that this calibration arises from the experience of changes in sound-localization cues arising from self-motion, such as turning the head or walking. As a practical matter, orientation and mobility instructors may reasonably assume that individuals with visual disabilities can use their hearing effectively in day-to-day travel situations.
本文报道了一项关于早期视觉经验对听觉空间感知发展影响的研究。将35名视力残疾儿童（22名先天性全盲儿童）的空间听觉与18名视力正常儿童和17名视力正常成年人的空间听觉进行了比较。这些测试对空间听觉能力进行了全面评估，包括对水平、垂直和距离维度空间分辨率的心理物理学估计，以及对声源位置的伸手和行走测量。视力残疾儿童的空间听觉与视力正常儿童和成年人相当，甚至略好。即使将视力残疾组限制为先天性全盲儿童，这种模式仍然成立；事实上，其中一些儿童的空间听觉特别好。这些发现表明，人类空间听觉的发育校准并不依赖于视觉经验史。这种校准似乎源于自我运动（如转头或行走）引起的声音定位线索变化的经验。实际上，定向和移动训练师可以合理地假设，视力残疾个体在日常出行中能够有效地利用他们的听力。
