The following is a summary of “Visual–tactile shape perception in the visually restored with artificial vision,” published in the February 2022 issue of Ophthalmology by Stiles, et al.

For a study, researchers investigated the ability of late blind patients with retinitis pigmentosa who received retinal prostheses to perform visual-tactile shape matching following the partial restoration of vision. 

They compared the performance of six Argus II retinal prosthesis patients with ten sighted controls and eight sighted controls with simulated ultra-low vision. In addition, the participants were tested on their ability to perform visual-visual, tactile-tactile, and visual-tactile two-dimensional shape-matching tasks.

The results showed that the visual-visual shape-matching performance of the Argus II patients was significantly greater than chance. Although the visual-tactile shape-matching performance of the Argus II patients was not significantly greater than chance, it was significantly higher with a longer duration of prosthesis use. The sighted controls using natural vision and those with simulated ultra-low vision performed the visual-visual and visual-tactile shape-matching tasks significantly more accurately than the Argus II patients. However, the tactile-tactile matching was not significantly different between the Argus II patients and sighted controls with or without simulated ultra-low vision.

The study suggested that retinal prosthesis patients can match shapes across the senses and integrate artificial vision with somatosensation. The correlation of crossmodal shape matching performance with the duration of device use supports the importance of experience in crossmodal shape learning. The findings provided insights into crossmodal perception after artificial visual restoration.

Source: jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2778602