When a human loses one of his/her senses, do other senses heighten?

Question

I know that bats, which have trouble seeing in dark, emit soundwaves that help them determine how close they are to objects like cave walls, etc. But what about humans? If a person loses his/her hearing or sight, do other senses "pick up the slack" so to speak?

Answer 1

Speaking of bats...

First of all, thanks for the question. I'd love to answer it!

Hmm... yes, the other senses in the human body do try to make up for the loss. It is generally observed that those who lose one of their sensory abilities in an unfortunate accident or have a congenital disability, develop rest of their senses to a higher level than a normal human being.

The visually-challenged can feel, hear and smell with better precision and accuracy than those blessed with eyes. The aurally-challenged can read peoples' lips with a higher level of accuracy than those blessed with ears.

Now, did you observe something peculiar in the above paragraph? If you did, then me and you are thinking on the same frequency and if you didn't, please read on...

As you might have observed, I didn't include the sense of taste while talking about the visually-challenged and neither did I list the sense of smell while describing the heightened abilities of the aurally challenged. This was because the visually-impaired don't have a heightened gustatory (taste-related) ability and the aurally challenged don't have a special olfactory (smell-related) ability. Why? because there's no need for it!

Losing the eyesight doesn't put a lot of extra pressure on the tongue and losing the hearing power doesn't influence one's nose.

Summarily, the sense organs when put under pressure, perform their level best to survive and thus, start performing better than normal. When you lose your eyesight, your ears and skin (and not the tongue) have to do the extra work to acclimatize you with the suroundings and in the process, gain better reflexes and accuracy.

This is why most doctors suggest "Neurobics" eg. blindfolding yourself and trying to remember the location of things in the room, trying to meditate in pin-drop silence... etc. so that the rest of your senses learn to work in a more co-ordinated and synchronised way. It is their natural "adaptation" against this external change (i.e. absense of a sense organ)

Now, before closing my answer, I'd like to add one more point: If loss of an organ results in highly efficient senses, does this mean that the organ was previously restraining or suppressing the other organs?
No, fact is... organs in our body try to conserve energy as much as they can. The human body is such an efficient machine. Other organs, on loss of an organ start working "overtime" just for the sake of survival of the organism.

Before losing the sense, work is divided evenly among the organs; but, AFTER losing the sense organ, the SAME amount of work is divided among lesser number of organs. Thus, to keep the efficiency constant, the organs have to work harder and smarter... it's just a higher level of the animal instinct!!

Thanks for your question again!

Answer 2

I tried blind-folding myself for a two days just to have a bit of feeling on how its like to be blind.

I was amazed how much I had to rely on my other senses to move around and do my daily tasks. At first it was hard to get used to but second day was easier and less stressful for me.

I've seen a few documentries that supports that but personally I think that if I had continued longer, I would have gotten better at using my other senses.

I don't know if there is a physcial change that happens but think that if you train yourself at something, you surely will come better at it eventually.

Answer 3

It's very true & you can even experiment youself. Try blindfolding yourself while sitting quietly on the porch, or anywhere, and listen for awhile. Your ears will begin to pick up and tune in to more sounds. Likewise, you can cover your ears and just use your eyes for awhile. Soon your vision starts to get sharper. It takes awhile, but it's pretty amazing.

There's loads of documentaries out there too, like on Discovery or the Health Channel, & I just watched one where a young man was actually using echo-location by clicking his tongue & the return sound tells him not only where something is, but he can often identify what the object is. His ears are truly making up for his lack of vision.

Answer 4

Yes, i saw a national geographic mag that showed a study of people eating blind folded for a week the stimulus of sound and taste incremented. the brain does less work so it reroutes that effort to other senses.
I'm being very general here, there is a complete nueroanatomical process.

thanks for the question.

Answer 5

Yes

Answer 6

Yes, I saw a really interesting show on Discovery, how intense other senses become.

Answer 7

I've heard this is true. It may not happen immediately, but over time it would. It think that it's just because you notice things you didn't notice before. It's what your body does to survive.

Answer 8

yes when a human loses one of his/hers senses the other do heighten.

Answer 9

Yes its does but by training,, blind ppl try to use thier hearing more effectively than normal ones