The Influence of Early Visual Deprivation on Audio-Spatial Working Memory

Objective: This study investigates how spatial working memory skills, and the processing and retrieval of distal auditory spatial information are influenced by visual experience. Method: We developed anexperimental paradigm using an acoustic simulation. The performance of congenitally blind and sightedparticipants (n = 9 per group) was compared when recalling sequences of spatialised auditory items in thesame or reverse order of presentation. Two experimental conditions based on stimuli features were tested:non-semantic and semantic. Results: Blind participants had a shorter memory span in the backward than theforward order of presentation. In contrast, sighted participants did not, revealing that blindness affectsspatial information processing with greater executive source involvement. Furthermore, we found that blindsubjects performed worse overall than the sighted group and that the semantic information significantlyimproved the performance, regardless of the experimental group and the sequences’ order of presentation.Conclusions: Lack of early visual experience affects the ability to encode the surrounding space. Congenitalblindness influences the processing and retrieval of spatial auditory items, suggesting that visual experienceplays a pivotal role in calibrating spatial memory abilities using the remaining sensory modalities