Do the Blind Have a More Acute Sense of Smell?

RESOURCE: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100426131601.htm


Everyone has heard and believed that blind people smell more accurately then those who have sight, but this isn’t entirely true. Mathilde Beaulieu-Lefebvre from the Université de Montréal Department of Psychology set out to debunk this myth. What she found is that blind people simply rely more on the sense of smell, but it’s not more accurate. Her and her team gathered 25 participants, 11 of them blind since birth. They had to take a questionnaire, they had to sort 16 different perfumes, and had to identify the scents of rose, vanilla, and a type of sweet alcohol. Using functional imagery, their three step study found that the blind use their olfactory cortex (for smell) more than the non blind, and also used their occipital cortex, which is used for sight. The urban legend was false, the blind just have to work harder. It’s pretty cool that the brain is using parts of it that don’t work for that specific purpose, but giving it a new job. I wonder if this happens with other disabilities?