Do the blind hear better than others?
2005/03/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria
Belief is widespread: the blind have very developed all senses that are not sight. However, some neurologists have wanted to confirm this belief, at least in the auditory aspect. And they have confirmed it.
In addition, they have seen that the part the brain uses to control vision can also be used to control the ear.
This research has been done through two types of experiments. On the one hand, we analyzed the hearing of a group of people, in which blind people participated and who saw, and in the tests that were conducted with a single ear it was clearly seen that blind people distinguished more sounds.
On the other hand, the scientists measured the brain activity produced by listening, they discovered through positron tomography that the part of the brain that manages vision can also manage hearing, so the blind have more brain activity than others.
In these experiments no other senses have been analyzed, but it would not be surprising that with them he behaved similarly.
