[blindza] fw: Superior Serial Memory in the Blind: A Case of Cognitive Compensatory Adjustment.
- From: "Jacob Kruger" <jacobk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "BlindZA" <blindza@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 22:50:01 +0200
---original message---
Superior Serial Memory in the Blind: A Case of Cognitive Compensatory
Adjustment.
In the absence of vision, perception of space is likely to be highly
dependent
on memory. As previously stated, the blind tend to code spatial information
in the form of "route-like" sequential representations. Thus, serial memory,
indicating the order in which items are encountered, may be especially
important for the blind to generate a mental picture of the world. In
accordance, we find that the congenitally blind are remarkably superior to
sighted peers in serial memory tasks. Specifically, subjects heard a list
of 20 words and were instructed to recall the words according to their
original
order in the list. The blind recalled more words than the sighted
(indicating
better item memory), but their greatest advantage was in recalling longer
word
sequences (according to their original order). We further show that the
serial
memory superiority of the blind is not merely a result of their advantage in
item recall per se (as we additionally confirm via a separate recognition
memory task). These results suggest the refinement of a specific cognitive
ability to compensate for blindness in humans.
By Noa Raz, Ella Striem, Golan Pundak, Tanya Orlov and Ehud Zohary.
Source URL:
http://www.current-biology.com/content/article/abstract?uid=PIIS0960982207014844
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