Sensory deprivation: Visual experience alters the mental number line

Pasqualotto, Achille; Taya, Shuichiro; Proulx, Michael J.

doi:10.1016/j.bbr.2013.12.017

Cited by 12 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Recent studies have shown that pseudoneglect and neglect are not limited to physical stimuli but also extend to mental representations, such as in the bisection of mental number lines and mental alphabet lines. When perceiving numbers humans tend to spatially organize their magnitudes in ascending order on a left-to-right oriented number line, commonly referred to as the mental number line (Dehaene, 1997; Pasqualotto, Taya & Proulx, 2014; Restle, 1970; Seron, Pesenti, Noël, Deloche, & Cornet, 1992). Similarly, a left-to-right mental organization (i.e., in an ascending sequence of A – Z) is thought to occur for alphabets, called the mental alphabet line (Gevers, Reynvoet, & Fias, 2003; Nicholls & Loftus, 2007).…”

Section: Directionality Bias In Space Mapping or Spatial Codingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anticlockwise or clockwise? A dynamic Perception-Action-Laterality model for directionality bias in visuospatial functioning

Karim

Proulx

Likova

2016

Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews

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Reviewing the relevant literature in visual psychophysics and visual neuroscience we propose a three-stage model of directionality bias in visuospatial functioning. We call this model the ‘Perception-Action-Laterality’ (PAL) hypothesis. We analyzed the research findings for a wide range of visuospatial tasks, showing that there are two major directionality trends: clockwise versus anticlockwise. It appears these preferences are combinatorial, such that a majority of people fall in the first category demonstrating a preference for stimuli/objects arranged from left-to-right rather than from right-to-left, while people in the second category show an opposite trend. These perceptual biases can guide sensorimotor integration and action, creating two corresponding turner groups in the population. In support of PAL, we propose another model explaining the origins of the biases– how the neurogenetic factors and the cultural factors interact in a biased competition framework to determine the direction and extent of biases. This dynamic model can explain not only the two major categories of biases, but also the unbiased, unreliably biased or mildly biased cases in visuosptial functioning.

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Section: Directionality Bias In Space Mapping or Spatial Codingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anticlockwise or clockwise? A dynamic Perception-Action-Laterality model for directionality bias in visuospatial functioning

Karim

Proulx

Likova

2016

Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews

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“…In a recent study, Pasqualotto et al (2014) found that congenitally (but not late) blind participants were likely to produce more smaller rather than larger numbers when turning the head to the right. The reverse pattern was apparent when turning the head to the left, suggesting that the mental number line may be right-to-left oriented in congenitally blind individuals.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Overall, prior evidence suggests that mental representation of numbers may be affected differently by proprioceptive cues (e.g., hand position, head turn) in blind than in sighted individuals, at least under specific task conditions (Crollen et al, 2013; Pasqualotto et al, 2014). In particular, the results by Crollen et al (2013) suggest that blind individuals may anchor their mental representations more to the hands, and less to world-centered reference frame.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…In particular, converging evidence suggests that blind individuals’ spatial representations rely more on body/hand centered coordinates compared to the sighted (Noordzij, Zuidhoek & Postma, 2006; Röder, Kusmierek, Spence & Schicke, 2007; for a review, see Cattaneo et al, 2008). The lack of prior visual experience has led to mixed reports in terms of its effect on the representation of external space and (at least to a certain extent) on the mental representation of numerical magnitude (Crollen, Dormal, Seron, Lepore & Collignon, 2013; Pasqualotto, Taya & Proulx, 2014). For example, prior evidence has found that blind individuals also tend to represent numbers in the form of a mental number line (Castronovo & Seron, 2007; Cattaneo et al, 2010; Szűcs & Csépe, 2005) showing attentional biases similar to those of sighted individuals when exploring it (Cattaneo, Fantino, Silvanto, Tinti & Vecchi, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Other recent findings have questioned the canonical left-to-right orientation of the mental number line in blind individuals in light of their performance in a random number generation task. Specifically, while sighted individuals typically generate smaller numbers when turning the head left, and more large numbers when turning the head right, early blind participants appear to show the opposite behavior (Pasqualotto et al, 2014). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The effect of hand movements on numerical bisection judgments in early blind and sighted individuals

Rinaldi

Vecchi

Fantino

et al. 2015

Cortex

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Recent evidence suggests that in representing numbers blind individuals might be affected differently by proprioceptive cues (e.g., hand positions, head turns) than are sighted individuals. In this study, we asked a group of early blind and sighted individuals to perform a numerical bisection task while executing hand movements in left or right peripersonal space and with either hand. We found that in bisecting ascending numerical intervals, the hemi-space in which the hand was moved (but not the moved hand itself) influenced the bisection bias similarly in both early blind and sighted participants. However, when numerical intervals were presented in descending order, the moved hand (and not the hemi-space in which it was moved) affected the bisection bias in all participants. Overall, our data show that the operation to be performed on the mental number line affects the activated spatial reference frame, regardless of participants’ previous visual experience. In particular, both sighted and early blind individuals’ representation of numerical magnitude is mainly rooted in world-centered coordinates when numerical information is given in canonical orientation (i.e. from small to large), whereas hand-centered coordinates become more relevant when the scanning of the mental number line proceeds in non-canonical direction.

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Visual loss alters multisensory face maps in humans

et al. 2018

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Topographically organised responses to visual and tactile stimulation are aligned in the ventral intraparietal cortex. The critical biological importance of this region, which is thought to mediate visually guided defensive movements of the head and upper body, suggests that these maps might be hardwired from birth. Here, we investigated whether visual experience is necessary for the creation and positioning of these maps by assessing the representation of tactile stimulation in congenitally and totally blind participants, who had no visual experience, and late and totally blind participants. We used a single-subject approach to the analysis to focus on the potential individual differences in the functional neuroanatomy that might arise from different causes, durations and sensory experiences of visual impairment among participants. The overall results did not show any significant difference between congenitally and late blind participants; however, single-subject trends suggested that visual experience is not necessary to develop topographically organised maps in the intraparietal cortex, whilst losing vision disrupted topographic maps' integrity and organisation. These results discussed in terms of brain plasticity and sensitive periods.

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Sensory deprivation: Visual experience alters the mental number line

Cited by 12 publications

References 23 publications

Anticlockwise or clockwise? A dynamic Perception-Action-Laterality model for directionality bias in visuospatial functioning

Anticlockwise or clockwise? A dynamic Perception-Action-Laterality model for directionality bias in visuospatial functioning

The effect of hand movements on numerical bisection judgments in early blind and sighted individuals

Visual loss alters multisensory face maps in humans

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