Humans That Are Born Blind or Deaf Depend More on Their

question 28

Essay

Humans that are born blind or deaf depend more on their remaining senses and may even experience rewiring of the neocortex for other functions. This could explain why cochlear implants or hearing aids often do not work well in individuals who have experienced extended hearing loss prior to treatment.
A. What is the experimental evidence in ferrets for adaptive specialization of the neonatal neocortex?
B. Bats that use echolocation to identify prey have expanded areas in the auditory cortex specifically tuned to the ultrasonic frequencies that they emit, while non-echolocating bats do not. Describe an experiment that could demonstrate whether this difference is due to developmental plasticity of the properties of the neocortex.

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Definitions:

Reversible Figures

Visual illusions where the brain switches between seeing two different images or perspectives in the same picture.

Perceptual Parsing

The cognitive process by which the brain segments and organizes sensory input into meaningful units or objects, allowing for the interpretation of the visual and auditory world.

Figure-Ground Relationships

A visual perception principle that involves distinguishing an object (the figure) from its surrounding area (the ground).

Perceptual Organization

The cognitive process by which the brain structures sensory input into meaningful patterns or objects.