In a remarkable example of the human brain’s adaptability to sensory loss, scientists have found that people with deafness develop superior peripheral vision, which is vision outside the eyes’ central focus.
This research result could help future designers “incorporate human factors in product design,” particularly with respect to visually disabled users, said the paper.
They found that the latter group responded to objects and movements even in the far-reaches of their eyesight, granting them an extra advantage in sensing their environment and detecting danger. The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. And this has been scientifically proven in several instances. The paper was published in the International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics.
Researchers from the Universities of York and Sheffield used MRI scans along with visual stimuli among 16 hearing adults and 16 deaf adults and compared them. For instance, 20 years ago, researchers studied the major sensory differences between the visually impaired and sighted persons, and found that the average pure tone hearing (the quietest sounds a person can hear) threshold of people with blindness was significantly higher than that of sighted ones.
