[AERNet] FW: How Blindness Boosts Memory

[Ike Presley]

Interesting research article. 

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Subject: How Blindness Boosts Memory

WebMD
Thursday, June 21, 2007

How Blindness Boosts Memory

By Miranda Hitti 

Blind People May Become Particularly Good at Remembering Order

WebMD medical news Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

June 21, 2007 -- Blindness may improve memory by practice and necessity,
according to an Israeli study published today.

"We speculate that this may be a classical case of 'practice makes
perfect,'" write the researchers, who included Ehud Zohary, PhD, of the
neurobiology department at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Zohary's team studied 19 people who were born blind and 19 people with
sight.

Participants listened to a list of 20 words read aloud. Then they were
quizzed on the word list, including the order of words on the list.

In a series of quizzes, the congenitally blind participants consistently
outscored the sighted participants.

The blind participants were best at what the researchers call serial
memory, which is recalling long strings of words in the correct order
from the word list.

Zohary's team confirmed that the blind and sighted participants were
equally intelligent.

The researchers argue that blindness spurs people to remember the order
of things so that they can distinguish between similar objects that only
differ visually.

For instance, the researchers note that when searching for a particular
flavor of yogurt on a shelf filled with similarly sized containers, a
blind person might remember that the flavor they want is the third
container from the left.

Such attention to order and sequence may help memory in general,
according to Zohary's team

The study appears in the advance online edition of Current Biology.

SOURCES: Raz, N. Current Biology, June 21, 2007; advance online edition.
News release, Cell Press.


http://www.webmd.com/brain/news/20070621/how-blindness-boosts-memory

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