Evidence from neuroimaging studies suggests the occipital (visual) cortex actively participates in non-visual sensory tasks. The purpose of this research is to answer two questions: 1) To what degree are visual cortical areas involved in tactile perception and recognition? 2) Are these same areas involved in tactile object recognition in congenitally blind individuals who lack prior visual experience? We will employ fMRI to answer these questions. Subjects will perform spatial discrimination and object recognition tasks to tactilely presented stimuli (simple texture patterns and complex objects such as faces). The proposed experiments will contribute to our understanding as to how objects are represented within the visual brain and how information obtained from touch contributes to this processing. Finally, comparing these processes in the blind will help uncover the adaptive mechanisms allowing perceptual object representation in the absence of vision. These results are likely to have implications for the rehabilitation and education of the blind and visually impaired.
