eprintid: 2969
rev_number: 8
eprint_status: archive
userid: 69
dir: disk0/00/00/29/69
datestamp: 2015-12-04 14:16:51
lastmod: 2016-09-13 09:53:46
status_changed: 2015-12-04 14:16:51
type: article
metadata_visibility: show
creators_name: Kupers, Ron
creators_name: Pietrini, Pietro
creators_name: Ricciardi, Emiliano
creators_name: Ptito, Maurice
creators_id: 
creators_id: pietro.pietrini@imtlucca.it
creators_id: emiliano.ricciardi@imtlucca.it
creators_id: 
title: The nature of consciousness in the visually-deprived brain
ispublished: pub
subjects: RC0321
divisions: CSA
full_text_status: public
keywords: vision, blindness, consciousness, qualia, cross-modal plasticity, supramodality, rewiring
abstract: Vision plays a central role in how we represent and interact with the world around us. The primacy of vision is structurally imbedded in cortical organization as about one-third of the cortical surface in primates is involved in visual processes. Consequently, the loss of vision, either at birth or later in life, affects brain organization and the way the world is perceived and acted upon. In this paper, we address a number of issues on the nature of consciousness in people deprived of vision. Do brains from sighted and blind individuals differ, and how? How does the brain of someone who has never had any visual perception form an image of the external world? What is the subjective correlate of activity in the visual cortex of a subject who has never seen in life? More in general, what can we learn about the functional development of the human brain in physiological conditions by studying blindness? We discuss findings from animal research as well from recent psychophysical and functional brain imaging studies in sighted and blind individuals that shed some new light on the answers to these questions.
date: 2011
date_type: published
publication: Frontiers in Psychology
volume: 2
number: 19
publisher: Frontiers in
id_number: 10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00019
refereed: TRUE
issn: 1664-1078
official_url: http://www.frontiersin.org/consciousness_research/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00019/abstract
citation:   Kupers, Ron and Pietrini, Pietro and Ricciardi, Emiliano and Ptito, Maurice  The nature of consciousness in the visually-deprived brain.  Frontiers in Psychology, 2 (19).   ISSN 1664-1078      (2011)  
document_url: http://eprints.imtlucca.it/2969/1/fpsyg-02-00019.pdf