Blindness and Brain Plasticity in Navigation and Object Perception

Research into the development of sensory structures in the brains of blind or visually-impaired individuals has opened a window into important ways in which the mind works. In these individuals, the part of the brain that is usually devoted to processing visual information is given over to increased processing of the touch and hearing sense. This demonstration of brain plasticity is of great importance to cognitive neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists, and has real implications for rehabilitation and education specialists who work with the visually impaired. This is an interdisciplinary book, featuring chapters from cognitive and developmental psychologists, neurologists and neuroscientists, and rehabilitation specialists and educators. All of these groups do research in this area but generally do not collaborate with one another. This book is an attempt to bring together the disparate threads of research into a single volume, appropriate for all three markets.