Blind Vision: The Neuroscience of Visual Impairment

by Zaira Cattaneo, Tomaso Vecchi

An investigation of the effects of blindness and other types of visual deficit on cognitive abilities. Can a blind person see? The very idea seems paradoxical. And yet, if we conceive of "seeing" as the ability to generate internal mental representations that may contain visual details, the idea of blind vision becomes a concept subject to investigation. In this book, Zaira Cattaneo and Tomaso Vecchi examine the effects of blindness and other types of visual deficit on the development and functioning of the human cognitive system. Drawing on behavioral and neurophysiological data, Cattaneo and Vecchi analyze research on mental imagery, spatial cognition, and compensatory mechanisms at the sensorial, cognitive, and cortical levels in individuals with complete or profound visual impairment. They find that our brain does not need our eyes to "see." Cattaneo and Vecchi address critical questions of broad the relationship of visual perception to imagery and working memory and the extent to which mental imagery depends on normal vision; the functional and neural relationships between vision and the other senses; the specific aspects of the visual experience that are crucial to cognitive development or specific cognitive mechanisms; and the extraordinary plasticity of the brain—as illustrated by the way that, in the blind, the visual cortex may be reorganized to support other perceptual or cognitive funtions. In the absence of vision, the other senses work as functional substitutes and are often improved. With Blind Vision , Cattaneo and Vecchi take on the "tyranny of the visual," pointing to the importance of the other senses in cognition.

269 pages, Hardcover

First published March 4, 2011

Reviews

[Rachael · Rating 4 out of 5]

fascinating and loads of case notes. unfortunately each case isn't broken down into specific detail when cited, and later on in the book we learn there is definitely a huge discrepancy in definitions like "late blind" and what constitutes various forms and degrees of visual loss. not to remotely say the data is a wash, but hard to compare the scientific studies when the community doesn't seem to have set standards and baselines for proper terminology. i especially enjoyed the parts about neuroplasticity and will continue to move on from there.