Numbers in the Blind's "Eye" Export

@article{citeulike:5301429, abstract = {Background Although lacking visual experience with numerosities, recent evidence shows that the blind perform similarly to sighted persons on numerical comparison or parity judgement tasks. In particular, on tasks presented in the auditory modality, the blind surprisingly show the same effect that appears in sighted persons, demonstrating that numbers are represented through a spatial code, i.e. the Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC) effect. But, if this is the case, how is this numerical spatial representation processed in the brain of the blind? Principal Findings Here we report that, although blind and sighted people have similarly organized numerical representations, the attentional shifts generated by numbers have different electrophysiological correlates (sensorial N100 in the sighted and cognitive P300 in the blind). Conclusions These results highlight possible differences in the use of spatial representations acquired through modalities other than vision in the blind population.}, author = {Salillas, Elena and Gran\'{a}, Alessia and El-Yagoubi, Radouane and Semenza, Carlo}, citeulike-article-id = {5301429}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0006357}, day = {23}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0006357}, journal = {PLoS ONE}, keywords = {arithmetic, erp, numeric, p300, spatial, visual}, month = {July}, number = {7}, pages = {e6357+}, posted-at = {2009-07-30 10:41:35}, priority = {2}, publisher = {Public Library of Science}, title = {Numbers in the Blind's "Eye"}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0006357}, volume = {4}, year = {2009} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:5301429 L3 - citeulike-article-id:5301429 N2 - Background Although lacking visual experience with numerosities, recent evidence shows that the blind perform similarly to sighted persons on numerical comparison or parity judgement tasks. In particular, on tasks presented in the auditory modality, the blind surprisingly show the same effect that appears in sighted persons, demonstrating that numbers are represented through a spatial code, i.e. the Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC) effect. But, if this is the case, how is this numerical spatial representation processed in the brain of the blind? Principal Findings Here we report that, although blind and sighted people have similarly organized numerical representations, the attentional shifts generated by numbers have different electrophysiological correlates (sensorial N100 in the sighted and cognitive P300 in the blind). Conclusions These results highlight possible differences in the use of spatial representations acquired through modalities other than vision in the blind population. IS - 7 JF - PLoS ONE TI - Numbers in the Blind's "Eye" PB - Public Library of Science VL - 4 SP - e6357 KW - arithmetic KW - erp KW - numeric KW - p300 KW - spatial KW - visual AU - Salillas, Elena AU - Graná, Alessia AU - El-Yagoubi, Radouane AU - Semenza, Carlo PY - 2009/07/23/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0006357 ER -