The blind would be able to perceive their own heartbeat better than the sighted – show the research results of scientists from the Jagiellonian University of Krakow and the Swedish Karolinska Institute :
The results indicate that after vision loss, the brain’s plasticity leads to an improved ability to perceive signals from within the body. “Our results are an important step in the study of brain plasticity and show that blind people are not only able to feel and touch, as we know from previous studies, but also to access signals from inside the body. This, in turn, allows us to better understand how blind people perceive their emotions in the absence of visual information, ”- said Marcin Szwed , whose laboratory participates in the research. The experiment was conducted by the scientists on 36 blind volunteers and 36 sighted:
“During the experiment, we wanted to test the subjects’ ability to perceive their heartbeat by counting the beats. In this way, we set out to test whether blind people have a better perception of their own body” – explained co-author Dominika Radziun . The study participants had to focus exclusively on their heartbeats, they were not allowed to check their pulse manually. They measured heart rate over several short periods:
They then related the number of beats they calculated with the actual number of heartbeats recorded. They also had to rate on a scale of 0 to 10 how well they thought they did the task. The study showed that blind people are more accurate at hearing heartbeats than sighted people. There were no differences between groups in how well they performed the task or in the number of heart beats per minute.
The scientific publication available here: https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2023-53761-001.html
#heart #science #blind #blind
