Memory and Representation of Vision-Related Verbs in Early Blind Individuals

Theories of Embodied and grounded cognition posit that knowledge retrieval is rooted in sensorimotor simulations of past experiences. Accordingly, individuals with diverse sensorimotor experiences may retrieve knowledge differently. Here, we asked whether and how congenital blind individuals remap the representation of vision-related verbs in the motor system. Participants memorized lists of phrases combining an object to an action-related (“to take a guitar”), vision-related (“to see a guitar”), or control verb (“to hear a guitar”). The lists were either learned with the hands at rest or behind their back. Results replicated previous findings showing that recall for action-related phrases was lower in both groups when they were learned with the hands behind the back. As expected, posture impacted the memory of vision-related phrases only in blind people, although in the opposite direction. These findings provide evidence for the sensorimotor grounding of knowledge and shed light on how blind individuals represent knowledge.