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Seeing after blindness

Nature Neuroscience volume 6, pages 909–910 (2003)Cite this article

The unusual case of a man who regained his sight after 40 years of blindness allows researchers to examine the neural and behavioral effects of losing visual experience on the establishment and maintenance of visual system function in humans.

Sight given to an adult following blindness from infancy is interesting for what this unusual occurrence can tell us about the normal development of vision. But of course the adult is not a baby suspended in time, as he has lost the normal 'critical development' periods and is armed with knowledge of the world from years of exploratory touch and from sighted people through language. In this issue, a thorough characterization of such a subject shows that he had instant sight for identification of simple shapes like a circle or triangle, with interesting abnormalities and a need for learning about more complicated visual objects, and almost completely spared motion perception.

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Figure 1: MM inside and outside.

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  1. The author is Department of Experimental Psychology, Emeritus Professor of Neuropsychology, University of Bristol, 8 Woodland Road, Clifton, BS8 1TN, Bristol, UK

    Richard L Gregory

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  1. Richard L Gregory
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Gregory, R. Seeing after blindness. Nat Neurosci 6, 909–910 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn0903-909

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nn0903-909

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