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SUMMARY:From science to technology: the interaction between senses during 
 the development and the creation of new rehabilitation devices. - Dr Monic
 a Gori\, Instituto Italiano di Techologia\, Genoa\, Italy
DTSTART:20190301T163000Z
DTEND:20190301T173000Z
UID:TALK116143@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Louise White
DESCRIPTION:It is evident that the brain is capable of large-scale reorgan
 ization following sensory deprivation but the extent of such reorganizatio
 n is not clear to date. Many works show that the visual modality is crucia
 l to develop spatial representations and the auditory modality is crucial 
 to develop temporal representations. Blindness and deafness are ideal clin
 ical conditions to study the reorganization of spatial and temporal repres
 entations when the visual or audio signals are not available. I will prese
 nt our data on the development of cross-sensory spatial and temporal skill
 s in typical\, blind and deaf children and adults. Results show that blind
  and low vision children and adults are impaired in some audio and tactile
  spatial skills and deaf are impaired on visual temporal processing. These
  results support the importance of these modalities on the cross-sensory d
 evelopment of spatial and temporal representations. I will also present EE
 G results in blind and deaf individuals to support this idea showing that 
 the sensory cortices have a pivotal role in building a high resolution and
  flexible spatial and temporal representations within the audio and visual
  modality and that these mechanisms are experience dependent. Finally\, I 
 will show that it possible to improve spatial representation skills in bli
 nd individuals with specific rehabilitation training. Previous works have 
 shown that in sighted children the development of spatial representation i
 s strictly related to the link between body movements and visual feedback.
  By 5 months of age\, sighted infants start to watch movements of their ow
 n hands and reach out towards interesting objects. The onset of this succe
 ssful sensory-motor association likely mediates the effects of visual expe
 rience on spatial representations in the sighted infant (Bremner et al.\, 
 2008). When the visual information is unavailable\, the natural visual sen
 sory feedback associated with body movement\, and crucial for the developm
 ent of space-representation\, is missing. We investigated whether a new se
 nsory-motor training based on audio-tactile-motor feedback associated with
  body movement can be used to improve spatial representation in blind and 
 low vision children. 42 children between 3 and 15 years of age participate
 d in 3 months of rehabilitation training with the new device. Results sugg
 est that it possible to use audio feedbacks associated with arm movement (
 e.g. small audio speakers positioned on the child's wrist) to rehabilitate
  space representation in blind children.\n \nMonica Gori graduated in Psyc
 hology at the University of Florence in 2004 (cum laude). From 2004 to 200
 5 she worked at the CNR of Pisa in David Burr’s Laboratory. She received
  her PhD in Humanoid Technologies from University of Genoa in January 2009
 . In 2008 she spent some months in Martin Banks lab (Berkeley\, California
 ). After a post-doc at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT)\, she is 
 now Tenure Track Researcher leading the U-VIP unit at IIT. She is an exper
 t of multisensory integration\, development and sensory disability\, on wh
 ich she has more than 80 publications and coordinated two ICT European Pro
 jects (ABBI and WeDraw) . 
LOCATION:Ground Floor Lecture Theatre\, Department of Psychology
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