Congenitally blind adults outperform sighted controls on verbal memory recall across timepoints¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associational r2 · q3 · i3 large
Currency · newest study 2017 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i3 Congenitally blind participants recalled significantly more words than sighted controls on the verbal memory task, with a large effect size. → Occelli Valeria 2017

Evidence¶

Occelli Valeria 2017¶

Occelli Valeria, Lacey Simon, Stephens Careese, Merabet Lotfi B., Sathian K. (2017). Enhanced Verbal Abilities in The Congenitally Blind. Experimental Brain Research. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5436932/

q3 · i3 · associational · r2

RM-ANCOVA of verbal memory recall in 12 congenitally blind and 13 sighted adults matched for age and education. Blind participants recalled "30.8 ± 3.8%" versus sighted "21.1 ± 2.4%", a large effect (d = 1.65).

"Repeated-measures (RM) ANCOVA of the verbal memory task (within group factors: timepoint and word-type) showed that the blind (mean ± sem: 30.8 ± 3.8%) performed better than the sighted (21.1 ± 2.4%: F1,20 = 15.7, p = .001, d = 1.65; Figure 3A)"

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Congenitally blind adults show higher verbal backwards digit span than sighted controls — related
• Congenitally blind adults produce more items on phonemic and semantic verbal fluency tasks than sighted controls — related
• Digit span correlates with phonemic fluency in the congenitally blind but not the sighted — related
• Verbal memory performance declines with age in the full sample, significantly at the one-week delay — related