BPS Research Digest is running an interesting series this week: they've enlisted an impressive list of psychology bloggers to write about their favorite psychology journal article from the past three years. First up is our entry. Here's an excerpt:
Helene Intraub's 2004 Cognition paper "Anticipatory spacial representation of 3D regions explored by sighted observers and a deaf-and-blind observer" is the one we'd like to nominate as our favorite of the past three years. In a remarkable set of experiments, Intraub extends the phenomenon of boundary extension to a new modality: touch.
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The study raises some provocative questions about the relation between the senses and the perceptual systems that we use to understand them. Do we represent tactile regions and visual areas using the same neurological systems? Do blind people "see" the world the same way others do? Or are visual representations analogous, but separate from tactile ones? It's the type of study that makes you want to roll up your sleeves and try to understand even more. That's what the best science is all about.
Our original writeup of the Intraub article is here.
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