Haptic Compensation in Blind People's Conceptual Representations.

ABSTRACT: Vision is typically dominant in our perception of the world. Such asymmetry is also observed in conceptual representations. This could be driven by perceptual experience or learned from other input, such as language. In this study we tested the role of direct perceptual experience in conceptual representation by investigating the sensory underpinnings of word meanings in blind and sighted individuals. Seventeen early-blind and 17 matched sighted Dutch native speakers rated 100 Dutch nouns for their sensory associations across six modalities (vision, audition, haptic, interoception, gustation, and olfaction) on a 0 (not at all) to 5 (very much) scale. To cover a range of concepts we used five semantic categories thought to be strongly associated with different sensory modalities: animals (v

SUBMITTER: Speed LJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12618011 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature