ABSTRACT
There is little doubt that the lack of visual sensory input can have important consequences for one’s life. Vision is an important sense, and provides a great deal of sensory and perceptual stimulation. In fact, there is a large sensory deprivation literature showing the damaging effects of visual and perceptual deprivation on one’s psychological well-being. Even a few days of visual deprivation can produce rather dramatic changes in perceptual functioning, and can alter brain organization (Pascual-Leone et al., 2006). The lack of visual input alters one’s response to touch and may also yield considerable psychological distress. The older literature on sensory deprivation indicated that the negative impact of visual deprivation was greater than the loss of sensory input from the other senses (Zubek, 1969). However, this early empirical literature did not really eliminate touch sensibility. It is important that perceptual deprivation by the loss of visual information through blurring vision was even more disruptive than a complete loss of visual sensations. The sensory deprivation literature revealed that loss of sensory input induced sleep deprivation, and sleep disorders are a common complaint among people who are blind or visually impaired owing to very low vision (Sack, Brandes, Kendall, & Lewy, 2000).
