blindsight

["Dennis P. Phillips, Ph.D." <ears@xxxxxxxxx>]

Re: auditory analogs of blindsight

I would have thought that a description of this condition would be a person
who verbally reports hearing nothing, but who nevertheless can be shown to
orient appropriately to sounds, or who, in forced choice discriminations,
performs above chance despite claiming not to hear the stimuli.

Re: Tom Brennan's comments on blindsight

Tom is almost certainly right that any such syndrome, if it exists, must be
central in origin.  I also agree with his approach of trying to tease out
whether such a disorder has a strictly sensory/perceptual component (as
opposed to linguistic or output components).  What makes this difficult is
the complexity and inter-connectedness of the perceptual and cognitive
architectures supported by our brains.  There are some fascinating case
studies that provide insight into local regions of this processing, and
some of these cases are reviewed in

Phillips, D.P.  (1995)  Central auditory processing: A view from
neuroscience.  Am. J. Otol., 16: 338-352.

I hope this helps.  Cheers,

Dennis PP


-----------------------------------
Dennis P. Phillips, Ph.D.
Hearing Research Laboratory
Professor,
Department of Psychology
Dalhousie University
Halifax, NS, Canada  B3H 4J1
Phone: (902)494-2383
Fax:   (902)494-6585
E-mail: ears@is.dal.ca
-----------------------------------