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Brief Communications

Trade-Off in the Sound Localization Abilities of Early Blind Individuals between the Horizontal and Vertical Planes

Patrice Voss, Vanessa Tabry and Robert J. Zatorre
Journal of Neuroscience 15 April 2015, 35 (15) 6051-6056; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4544-14.2015
Patrice Voss
1Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montréal, Québec H3A 2B4, Canada,
2International Laboratory for Brain, Music and Sound Research (BRAMS), Montréal, Québec H2V 4P3, Canada, and
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Vanessa Tabry
3Department of Psychology, Concordia University, Montréal, Québec H3A 2B4, Canada
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Robert J. Zatorre
1Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montréal, Québec H3A 2B4, Canada,
2International Laboratory for Brain, Music and Sound Research (BRAMS), Montréal, Québec H2V 4P3, Canada, and
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Abstract

There is substantial evidence that sensory deprivation leads to important cross-modal brain reorganization that is paralleled by enhanced perceptual abilities. However, it remains unclear how widespread these enhancements are, and whether they are intercorrelated or arise at the expense of other perceptual abilities. One specific area where such a trade-off might arise is that of spatial hearing, where blind individuals have been shown to possess superior monaural localization abilities in the horizontal plane, but inferior localization abilities in the vertical plane. While both of these tasks likely involve the use of monaural cues due to the absence of any relevant binaural signal, there is currently no proper explanation for this discrepancy, nor has any study investigated both sets of abilities in the same sample of blind individuals. Here, we assess whether the enhancements observed in the horizontal plane are related to the deficits observed in the vertical plane by testing sound localization in both planes in groups of blind and sighted persons. Our results show that the blind individuals who displayed the highest accuracy at localizing sounds monaurally in the horizontal plane are also the ones who exhibited the greater deficit when localizing in the vertical plane. These findings appear to argue against the idea of generalized perceptual enhancements in the early blind, and instead suggest the possibility of a trade-off in the localization proficiency between the two auditory spatial planes, such that learning to use monaural cues for the horizontal plane comes at the expense of using those cues to localize in the vertical plane.

  • azimuth
  • blindness
  • sound localization
  • vertical
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The Journal of Neuroscience: 35 (15)
Journal of Neuroscience
Vol. 35, Issue 15
15 Apr 2015
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Trade-Off in the Sound Localization Abilities of Early Blind Individuals between the Horizontal and Vertical Planes
Patrice Voss, Vanessa Tabry, Robert J. Zatorre
Journal of Neuroscience 15 April 2015, 35 (15) 6051-6056; DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4544-14.2015

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Trade-Off in the Sound Localization Abilities of Early Blind Individuals between the Horizontal and Vertical Planes
Patrice Voss, Vanessa Tabry, Robert J. Zatorre
Journal of Neuroscience 15 April 2015, 35 (15) 6051-6056; DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4544-14.2015
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Keywords

  • azimuth
  • blindness
  • sound localization
  • vertical

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