Deaf adults have distinctly superior peripheral vision, finds new study

The brain is rewired, with a redistribution of neural resources: among the deaf, there was a greater neural weightage given to far-peripheral vision in the primary visual cortex, the study found. Image used for representational purposes only | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto In a remarkable example of the human brain’s adaptability to sensory loss, scientists have found that people with deafness develop superior peripheral vision, which is vision outside the eyes’ central focus.Researchers from the Universities of York and Sheffield used MRI scans along with visual stimuli among 16 hearing adults and 16 deaf adults and compared them. They found that the latter group responded to objects and movements even in the far-reaches of their eyesight, granting them an extra advantage in sensing their environment and detecting danger.How this happensThe brain is rewired, with a redistribution of neural resources: among the deaf, there was a greater neural weightage given to far-peripheral vision in the primary visual cortex (the part of the brain responsible for deconstructing visual input) and the lateral geniculate nucleus (a visual relay centre situated deep within the brain).“The brain does a really clever thing, in that it doesn’t expand overall visual capacity, but does a type of trade-off that redistributes its existing resources,” Heidi Baseler, co-author from the University of York’s Department of Psychology and the Hull York Medical School, explained in a release.The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.In people with deafness, this adjustment is particularly important as it enables them to better catch “unexpected events that might happen just out of the central line of sight, that those of able hearing would be aware of more acutely through the sound that they might make,” and therefore could avoid, say, a car collision, for instance, Dr. Baseler said. Interestingly, the brain does not entirely expand its visual processing capacity, but provides more power to peripheral vision and a little less to the central visual field to people with deafness. This finding could help better understand of how the brain adapts to sensory loss.The compensation effectIt has, in fact, been a long-held belief that those with a sensory deficit develop a stronger ability with other senses as compensation, also known as the ‘compensation effect’.And this has been scientifically proven in several instances. For instance, 20 years ago, researchers studied the major sensory differences between the visually impaired and sighted persons, and found that the average pure tone hearing (the quietest sounds a person can hear) threshold of people with blindness was significantly higher than that of sighted ones. The paper was published in the International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics.This research result could help future designers “incorporate human factors in product design,” particularly with respect to visually disabled users, said the paper. Published - September 24, 2026 11:23 am IST