This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

Are people who have been blind for most of their lives better at hearing than sighted individuals? In a new study in JNeurosci, Woon Ju Park, from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and colleagues explored this question by comparing tone detection and pitch discrimination in people with and without sight.

The researchers assessed these aspects of hearing because they have different mechanisms: Tone detection involves the cochlea of the ear, and pitch discrimination involves cortical processing in the brain.

People with and without vision detected tones accurately, but those with lifelong blindness were better at discriminating between pitches than individuals with intact vision.

Probing this difference further using a mathematical model, the researchers discovered that people who became blind early in life showed less random variability in how their brains responded to the same pitch from one moment to the next, a phenomenon referred to as internal noise.

Park and colleagues then wondered whether this effect is specific to vision loss or whether other groups of people who use acute listening skills have similar reductions in internal noise.

The researchers selected people with different levels of musical training and compared their hearing ability using the same measures. Like people without sight, those with more musical experience had less internal noise, which enhanced their ability to discriminate between pitches.

Park says, "I think one of the main implications from this work is that enhanced hearing in individuals who became blind early in life is selective.

Source link