New research has shown people who experience partial vision loss in early childhood struggle more with accurately judging sound location compared with those who lose their sight later in life.
The new study, led by Anglia Ruskin University in collaboration with the University of East Anglia, is the first to compare how people with early (before age 10) and later onset vision loss judge the distance of sound. This study in Optometry and Vision Sciences, involved 52 participants under 33 years old.
Compared to the control group, people with early-onset vision loss tended to judge that sounds played from close distance (up to 5 meters) were actually coming from further away.
"Clearly a difficulty in judging short and medium distance sounds could have safety implications, for example when attempting to cross the road". "Hopefully, this study will add evidence that will lead to solutions to improve the lives of people with vision loss across the world"
optometry and vision science 10 2024
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