Infant Blindness Boosts Music Ability -Study

[ASUmusicMAN]

Infant Blindness Boosts Music Ability -Study

Wed Jul 14, 1:29 PM ET

By Jeremy Lovell

LONDON (Reuters) - Infants who go blind at a very young age develop musical abilities that are measurably better than those who lose their sight later in life or retain full vision, according to a new study.

It has long been known that blind people are far better than their sighted counterparts at orientating themselves by sound.

But now scientists at Canada's University of Montreal have found that blind people are also up to 10 times better at discerning pitch changes than the sighted -- but only when they went blind before the age of two.

"This research confirms that blind people are indeed better at pitch discrimination than normal, sighted people," lead researcher Pascal Belin told Reuters.

"It is well known that you have great musicians that are blind, and a lot of piano tuners are blind. But until this study there was no quantifiable evidence to demonstrate that blind people were indeed better," he added.

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