Scientists have discovered that humans use the visual part of their brain when processing sounds in the dark, even if they have never had sight in their lifetime.
In a series of studies published in Current Biology, (“Decoding Natural Sounds in Early ‘Visual’ Cortex of Congenitally Blind Individuals”) an international team of researchers, led by Royal Holloway, explains how scans of brain activity from volunteers who were blindfolded and exposed to bird song, people talking and traffic noise through headphones, used their primary visual cortex to identify the sound.