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. 2012 Nov 7;3:457. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00457

Table 1.

Summary of the positive and negative evidence or problems = raised by studies on sensory substitution.

Behavior Required training Subjective changes Neurological changes
Evidence New localization and identification abilities Limits in number of objects, role of familiarity with the object Regress or break in transparent access Necessary Role of practice vs. explicit rules. Patterns of generalization Qualitative change after training No clear modality Neurological plasticity in V1 for trained blind users Is it “visual” activity? Are changes limited to visual areas?
Perceptual models + ± ± + ±
Reading-like model + + + + + + + + ±

The table highlights how well each model handles or is capable of handling the existing empirical evidence (+, accounted; ±, possibly accounted; blank, not accounted). It should be clear that the reading-like model does better than perceptual models.