TY  - JOUR
A1  - Reuschel, Johanna
A1  - Rösler, Frank
A1  - Henriques, Denise Y. P.
A1  - Fiehler, Katja
T1  - Spatial updating depends on gaze direction even after loss of vision
T2  - The journal of neuroscience
N2  - Direction of gaze (eye angle + head angle) has been shown to be important for representing space for action, implying a crucial role of vision for spatial updating. However, blind people have no access to vision yet are able to perform goal-directed actions successfully. Here, we investigated the role of visual experience for localizing and updating targets as a function of intervening gaze shifts in humans. People who differed in visual experience (late blind, congenitally blind, or sighted) were briefly presented with a proprioceptive reach target while facing it. Before they reached to the target's remembered location, they turned their head toward an eccentric direction that also induced corresponding eye movements in sighted and late blind individuals. We found that reaching errors varied systematically as a function of shift in gaze direction only in participants with early visual experience (sighted and late blind). In the late blind, this effect was solely present in people with moveable eyes but not in people with at least one glass eye. Our results suggest that the effect of gaze shifts on spatial updating develops on the basis of visual experience early in life and remains even after loss of vision as long as feedback from the eyes and head is available.
Y1  - 2012
UR  - https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/36129
SN  - 0270-6474
VL  - 32
IS  - 7
SP  - 2422
EP  - 2429
PB  - Society for Neuroscience
CY  - Washington
ER  -