Perception and discrimination of real-life emotional vocalizations in early blind individuals

IntroductionThe capacity to understand others’ emotions and react accordingly is a key social ability. However, it may be compromised in case of a profound sensory loss that limits the contribution of available contextual cues (e.g., facial expression, gestures, body posture) to interpret emotions expressed by others. In this study, we specifically investigated whether early blindness affects the capacity to interpret emotional vocalizations, whose valence may be difficult to recognize without a meaningful context.MethodsWe asked a group of early blind (N = 22) and sighted controls (N = 22) to evaluate the valence and the intensity of spontaneous fearful and joyful non-verbal vocalizations.ResultsOur data showed that emotional vocalizations presented alone (i.e., with no contextual information) are similarly ambiguous for blind and sighted individuals but are perceived as more intense by the former possibly reflecting their higher saliency when visual experience is unavailable.DisussionOur study contributes to a better understanding of how sensory experience shapes ememotion recognition

The mechanism of phonetic information in voice identity discrimination: a comparative study based on sighted and blind people

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine whether phonetic information functions and how phonetic information affects voice identity processing in blind people.MethodTo address the first inquiry, 25 normal sighted participants and 30 blind participants discriminated voice identity, when listening forward speech and backward speech from their own native language and another unfamiliar language. To address the second inquiry, combining articulatory suppression paradigm, 26 normal sighted participants and 26 blind participants discriminated voice identity, when listening forward speech from their own native language and another unfamiliar language.ResultsIn Experiment 1, not only in the voice identity discrimination task with forward speech, but also in the discrimination task with backward speech, both the sighted and blind groups showed the superiority of the native language. This finding supports the view that backward speech still retains some phonetic information, and indicates that phonetic information can affect voice identity processing in sighted and blind people. In addition, only the superiority of the native language of sighted people was regulated by the speech manner, which is related to articulatory rehearsal. In Experiment 2, only the superiority of the native language of sighted people was regulated by articulatory suppression. This indicates that phonetic information may act in different ways on voice identity processing in sighted and blind people.ConclusionThe heightened dependence on voice source information in blind people appears not to undermine the function of phonetic information, but it appears to change the functional mechanism of phonetic information. These findings suggest that the present phonetic familiarity model needs to be improved with respect to the mechanism of phonetic information

Mental Imagery Follows Similar Cortical Reorganization as Perception: Intra-Modal and Cross-Modal Plasticity in Congenitally Blind

Cortical plasticity in congenitally blind individuals leads to cross-modal activation of the visual cortex and may lead to superior perceptual processing in the intact sensory domains. Although mental imagery is often defined as a quasi-perceptual experience, it is unknown whether it follows similar cortical reorganization as perception in blind individuals. In this study, we show that auditory versus tactile perception evokes similar intra-modal discriminative patterns in congenitally blind compared with sighted participants. These results indicate that cortical plasticity following visual deprivation does not influence broad intra-modal organization of auditory and tactile perception as measured by our task. Furthermore, not only the blind, but also the sighted participants showed cross-modal discriminative patterns for perception modality in the visual cortex. During mental imagery, both groups showed similar decoding accuracies for imagery modality in the intra-modal primary sensory cortices. However, no cross-modal discriminative information for imagery modality was found in early visual cortex of blind participants, in contrast to the sighted participants. We did find evidence of cross-modal activation of higher visual areas in blind participants, including the representation of specific-imagined auditory features in visual area V4

Crossmodal plasticity in the fusiform gyrus of late blind individuals during voice recognition.

Blind individuals are trained in identifying other people through voices. In congenitally blind adults the anterior fusiform gyrus has been shown to be active during voice recognition. Such crossmodal changes have been associated with a superiority of blind adults in voice perception. The key question of the present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study was whether visual deprivation that occurs in adulthood is followed by similar adaptive changes of the voice identification system. Late blind individuals and matched sighted participants were tested in a priming paradigm, in which two voice stimuli were subsequently presented. The prime (S1) and the target (S2) were either from the same speaker (person-congruent voices) or from two different speakers (person-incongruent voices). Participants had to classify the S2 as either coming from an old or a young person. Only in late blind but not in matched sighted controls, the activation in the anterior fusiform gyrus was modulated by voice identity: late blind volunteers showed an increase of the BOLD signal in response to person-incongruent compared with person-congruent trials. These results suggest that the fusiform gyrus adapts to input of a new modality even in the mature brain and thus demonstrate an adult type of crossmodal plasticity

Réorganisation cérébrale consécutive à la perte tardive d'une partie ou de la totalité du champ visuel et à la restitution sensorielle : approche comportementale et par IRM fonctionnelle

Cerebral plasticity processes developing from late visual deficit are not fully understood. Insights into these mechanisms could improve the rehabilitation programs, provide the patients with new sensory substitution devices, and even predict the outcome of some vision restoration treatments. A variety of combined approaches should allow to better define these mechanisms. On the one hand, we investigated the functional connectivity (FC) of the brain by a resting-state fMRI analysis, and on the other hand we carried out a behavioral study. The selected subjects (1) had lost the peripheral visual field due to a pigmentary retinopathy and therefore holding a “tunnel vision”, (2) had lost the central visual field i.e. subjects suffering from central scotoma resulting from a Stargardt macular dystrophy, (3) became lately blind, as the result of pigmentary retinopathy terminal stage and (4) potentially visually-restored by a retinal prosthesis.(A) Resting-state functional connectivity studiesStudy 1. In subjects suffering from peripheral or complete visual loss, we studied the FC of visual and language areas. We found an increased FC in Broca’s and specific visually deprived areas in both groups of patients as compared to sighted controls. Therefore, the plasticity between the visual and language systems can develop in the adult brain i.e. long after the end of a developmental sensitive period, following not only total but also partial visual deprivation. These data also contribute to the debate about the development of such plasticity in the late blind. Furthermore, they reshape the conditions of vision and language systems plasticity, which is (1) constrained to visually deafferented regions and (2) possible even in presence of a residual vision.Study 2. In subjects with converse central or peripheral visual field defects, we studied the FC of V1 subregions – onto which the central visual field (cV1) and the peripheral visual field (pV1) are projected, with the rest of the brain. The results showed an increased FC of (1) tunnel vision subjects afferented region (cV1) with regions involved in space, scene processing and multisensory integration and (2) central scotoma subjects afferented region (pV1) with regions involved in face perception. Moreover, an increased FC was observed between deafferented regions and regions involved in high-order functions and top-down mechanisms. These findings suggest that the afferented regions of V1 strengthen the connections with regions involved in deficient visual functions, whereas the sensory-deafferented V1 tunes-up preexisting high-order mechanisms to assist vision. These data bring new information about the plasticity in sub-regions of V1 that develops to process various functions, following partial visual loss.(B) Behavioural study of blind subjects fitted with a retinal prosthesis Study 3. We finally examined the adaptive behavior of subjects suffering from pigmentary retinopathy fitted with a camera-connected retinal prosthesis for 4 years. Such a device can potentially lead to dissociation between eyes and head-mounted camera; this is incompatible with physiological mechanisms of the spatial localization of visualized images, which depend on the gaze direction. This kind of dissociation is expected to alter the visuomotor coordination in subjects fitted with the considered retinal prosthesis device. We observed that misalignments between gaze and head (i.e. camera) positions occur during visual search, and could not be prevented when following vestibulo-ocular reflexes. This misalignment leads to the illusion of a visual target movement, and affects the visuo-motor coordination that was quantified in this study. After 4 years of current use of their device, the subjects develop compensatory strategies that partially solve these issues.Les processus de plasticité cérébrale consécutifs à un déficit visuel survenu tardivement sont encore peu connus. En comprendre les mécanismes est pourtant essentiel à l'optimisation de méthodes de rééducation des sujets atteints, au développement de dispositifs visant à substituer l'information normalement apportée par la modalité déficiente, par celle d'une autre modalité sensorielle, et à la conception de systèmes permettant de restaurer une certaine fonction visuelle. Afin d'étudier ces processus, nous avons choisi d'une part, d'analyser la connectivité fonctionnelle du cerveau à l'état de repos par imagerie par résonance magnétique fonctionnelle (IRMf), et d'autre part de les explorer par une approche comportementale. Les sujets étudiés avaient soit sélectivement perdu (1) la périphérie du champ visuel, à la suite d'une rétinopathie pigmentaire au stade de " vision tunnellaire ", ou (2) le centre du champ visuel, c'est-à-dire souffrant d'un scotome central des suites d'une dégénérescence maculaire de Stargardt soit (3) l'intégralité du champ visuel, au stade terminal d'une rétinopathie pigmentaire et (4) étaient éventuellement porteurs d'un système de prothèse rétinienne. (A) Études de la connectivité fonctionnelle par IRMf de repos Étude 1. Chez des sujets tardivement atteints dans la périphérie ou dans la totalité du champ visuel, nous avons étudié la connectivité fonctionnelle de l'aire de Broca et des aires visuelles. Comparée à celle des sujets sains, la connectivité fonctionnelle de ces patients est accrue entre l’aire de Broca et, dans V1, les parties privées d’afférences visuelles. Ainsi, à la suite d’une privation visuelle totale ou sectorielle, un processus plastique entre les systèmes de la vision et du langage peut se produire chez l’adulte, au-delà donc de la période sensible du développement. Ces données apportent aussi une contribution au débat sur la possibilité d’une telle plasticité chez le sujet devenu tardivement aveugle. Elles permettent, par ailleurs, de définir les conditions qui accompagnent la plasticité des systèmes de la vision et du langage, c’est-à-dire d’une part le confinement de son développement au niveau des régions visuelles désafférentées et d’autre part la possibilité de son développement alors qu’une partie de la vision est encore fonctionnelle. Étude 2. Chez des sujets présentant des atteintes du champ visuel périphérique ou central, nous avons analysé la connectivité fonctionnelle des parties de V1 où se projettent respectivement le champ visuel central (V1 centrale) et le champ visuel périphérique (V1 périphérique) avec les autres régions du cerveau. Comparée à celle des sujets sains, nous avons observé une augmentation de la connectivité fonctionnelle entre (1) la région afférentée des sujets avec vision tunnellaire (V1 centrale) et des régions impliquées dans le traitement des scènes, de l’espace et de l’intégration multisensorielle, et (2) la région afférentée des sujets avec scotome central (V1 périphérique) et des régions notamment impliquées dans la perception des visages. Quant aux régions désafférentées (V1 périphérique pour les sujets avec vision tunnellaire et V1 centrale pour les sujets avec scotome central), nous leur avons trouvé une connectivité fonctionnelle accrue avec des régions impliquées dans des fonctions supérieures et des mécanismes top-down. Il apparaît que les régions encore afférentées de V1 renforcent leurs connexions avec des régions cérébrales dont les fonctions sont altérées par la désafférentation de l’autre partie de V1, alors que les régions visuelles désafférentées modulent des mécanismes de haut-niveau, préexistants, dans la probable intention de soutenir la vision résiduelle de ces sujets. Ces données apportent des informations nouvelles sur l’adaptation plastique des régions de V1 au traitement de diverses fonctions, suite à la perte d’un secteur périmétrique

Intégration et topographie fonctionnelles : l'influence de la cécité précoce

L’organisation fonctionnelle du cerveau humain montre une similarité interindividuelle remarquable et robuste, suggérant que sa structure fonctionnelle est innée. Cependant, cette observation n’est pas sans équivoques, le cerveau est aussi plastique : son organisation peut être influencée par des évènements survenant tôt dans la vie. Parmi les plus marquants, on retrouve la perte de vision précoce ou congénitale. En effet, il a été démontré à plusieurs reprises que, chez les personnes non-voyantes, les régions habituellement dédiées à la vision (ex. : lobes occipitaux) se réorganisent afin d’analyser des stimuli auditifs et tactiles. Les plus récentes études chez les non-voyants se sont intéressées à la relation entre la réorganisation des lobes occipitaux et les deux principes organisateurs fondamentaux du cerveau : la localisation fonctionnelle et l’intégration fonctionnelle. Le premier signifie que des fonctions spécifiques mobilisent des régions circonscrites du cerveau, tandis que le second signifie que les régions du cerveau communiquent entre elles afin de créer un tout cohérent. Toutefois, l’ampleur de l’effet de la cécité sur l’organisation du cerveau est encore inconnue. Premièrement, la topographie de modules possédant une fonction spécifique n’a encore jamais fait l’objet d’un examen direct, approfondi et holistique chez les non-voyants, et ce, malgré le fait qu’il s’agisse d’une caractéristique clef de la localisation fonctionnelle. En outre, les études examinant l’intégration fonctionnelle chez les non-voyants semblent en contradiction avec celles qui l’étudient de manière indirecte. Cette dépendance des résultats sur la méthode employée nécessite une étude approfondie des éléments influençant ces résultats afin que des conclusions appropriées puissent être tirées. Ainsi, bien que la plasticité cérébrale chez les personnes non-voyantes fasse l’objet de plusieurs études, son influence sur l’organisation fonctionnelle du cerveau reste à approfondir et est sujette à débats. De ces faits, l’objectif principal de la présente thèse est d’examiner l’influence de la cécité précoce sur la topographie des modules fonctionnels ainsi que sur l’intégration fonctionnelle. Pour cela, trois expériences distinctes ont été conduites. La première expérience a été élaborée afin de comparer la disposition spatiale des modules fonctionnels des voyants à celle des non-voyants. À cette fin, une méthode a été développée qui permettait d’examiner la question de manière holistique et sans biais à partir de données d’imagerie par résonance magnétique. Les résultats indiquent que seules les régions « visuelles » de bas niveau, les pôles occipitaux, sont sous-divisées de manière différente chez les personnes non-voyantes. À l’opposé, les régions de haut niveau maintiennent leur disposition spatiale. Ceci suggère que l’établissement de modules fonctionnels au sein du lobe occipital dépend à la fois d’entrées sensorielles visuelles, ainsi que du niveau hiérarchique de la région. La seconde expérience de cette thèse visait à examiner certains facteurs qui pourraient causer les contradictions observées par les études sur l’intégration fonctionnelle chez les non-voyants. Les données d’une des méthodes employées pour mesurer l’intégration fonctionnelle, l’état de repos mesuré par imagerie par résonance magnétique fonctionnelle, ont été comparées à celles obtenues lorsque les participants se concentraient sur une tâche auditive. D’abord, les résultats démontrent une dépendance de l’intégration fonctionnelle sur l’état cognitif des participants, suggérant que les différences entre non-voyants et voyants observées jusqu’ici doivent être interprétées prudemment. De plus, et d’une importance inédite, les résultats démontrent que les pôles occipitaux possèdent des caractéristiques fonctionnelles différentes chez les non-voyants que chez les voyants. Ces caractéristiques suggèrent que les pôles sont impliqués dans un nombre plus important de réseaux chez les personnes non-voyantes. La troisième expérience de cette thèse a été conçue pour faire suite aux résultats des deux premières. Spécifiquement, elle valide une méthode qui sera employée afin d’examiner des régions qui, selon les deux premières expériences de cette thèse, possédaient des caractéristiques fonctionnelles réorganisées chez les personnes non-voyantes : les pôles occipitaux. Cette méthode, développée afin de contrôler la difficulté d’une tâche de perception de voix humaines, s’est avérée valide. Ainsi, elle pourra être employée lors d’études futures afin de désambiguïser la fonction des pôles occipitaux chez les non-voyants. De plus, les résultats de l’expérience révèlent plusieurs mécanismes d’action sous-jacents la perception de voix chez l’être humain. Globalement, les deux premières expériences constituant cette thèse mettent en évidence les caractéristiques fonctionnelles réorganisées au sein des pôles occipitaux chez les PNV, une région encore sous-étudiée chez cette population. La troisième étude présente une méthode permettant d’étudier ce phénomène. Les caractéristiques dévoilées par ces expériences pavent la voie vers de nouvelles hypothèses et études qui permettront d’approfondir notre conception du cerveau et de la plasticité cérébrale.The brain’s functional organization shows a remarkable similarity across individuals suggesting that its functional structure is innate. However, this observation is not unequivocal for the brain is also plastic; its organization is subject to changes following important early life experiences. Of such event, early or congenital vision-loss features among the most outstanding. Following blindness, cerebral regions usually involved with visual analysis (e.g. occipital lobes) are reorganized to process auditory, tactile, and olfactory stimuli, as well as higher order cognitive tasks such as memory and language. Recent studies on blind individuals have focused on the relationship between the reorganization of the occipital lobes and the fundamental organizational principles of the brain: functional localization and integration. The first indicates that specific functions take place within circumscribed cerebral regions, whereas the second indicates that these regions communicate together. However, the extent to which blindness influences the brain’s organization is still unknown. First, the topography of modules possessing specific functions has yet to be the object of a direct, in depth, and holistic investigation in blind people. This is true even though module topography is a key characteristic of spatially localized functions. Moreover, studies investigating functional integration in blind individuals appear to contradict those which study integration indirectly. The dependence of results upon the method employed demands further investigation of the elements that might influence integration so that appropriate conclusions can be drawn. Thus, even though blindness-induced brain plasticity has been the object of multiple studies, its influence upon cerebral organization is partly subject to debate, and must be further defined. Accordingly, the main objective of this thesis was to study the influence of early blindness upon the topography of functional modules and upon functional integration. In order to do so, three distinct experiments were carried. The first experiment was conceived so as to compare the spatial topographies of functional modules across blind and sighted participants. To this end, a holistic and bias-free method, which made use of resting-state functional magnetic resonance imagery, was developed. Results indicate that only blind people’s occipital poles possess modules which were topographically different from those found in sighted individuals whereas higher level “visual” areas do not show this effect. This suggests that the formation of functional modules within the “visual” cortices depends on both sensory inputs as well as the hierarchical level of a region. The second experiment of this thesis examined factors which might cause the contradictions observed by studies on blind people’s functional integration. Data obtained from a method devised to measure functional integration, resting-state functional magnetic resonance imagery, were compared to those obtained while participant focused on auditory stimuli. Results are twofold. First, results showed that group differences in functional integration vary as a function of the participant’s cognitive states, suggesting that differences in functional integration observed using resting-state fMRI should be interpreted with caution. Second, our results reveal novel findings pertaining to the occipital poles of blind people; these regions showed strikingly different characteristic following early visual loss which are suggestive of their role in a multitude of networks. The third experiment of this thesis was designed following the first two. Specifically, it validates a method to examine the functions of blind people’s occipital poles, a region which had been shown to possess reorganized functional characteristics by the first two experiments of this thesis. A new methodology was designed to control the difficulty of a voice discrimination task, showing its validity. Thus, it will be possible to use it in future studies to investigate the function of the occipital lobes in blind people. Furthermore, results from the experiment revealed multiple mechanisms which might underlie voice perception in humans. Overall, the experiments forming this thesis evidence a reorganisation of the occipital poles’ functional characteristics in early-blind individuals. Additionally, they provide methods needed to investigate the functions of this understudied region. Most importantly, the observation that blind people’s occipital poles show modified functional characteristics paves the way to new hypotheses and studies which will allow to further investigate and deepen our understanding of the human brain and its plasticity

Breathe, Relax, Recognise

Witness memory is fallible. Time and again, people convicted on the basis of witness testimony are exonerated when DNA is introduced into the case. Some of those convicted are sometimes chosen by multiple different witnesses from a line-up. Witness memory for the event and surrounding information has also been shown to be less than perfect, especially over time. However recent research has demonstrated a favourable effect of a short focussed meditation/breathing exercise on identification accuracy, with participants in such conditions being more accurate than a control group. Other research has also shown beneficial effects of eye closure, when witnesses are instructed to close their eyes for the duration of the interview. The experiments reported in this thesis investigated the applied and theoretical aspects of focussed meditation and the eye closure effect. Experiment 1 examined the theoretical underpinnings of focussed meditation and whether it primed a global processing orientation which is conducive to face recognition. The study found that indeed, although not statistically significant, focussed meditation not only primed a global processing orientation but also led to quicker reaction times. Experiment 2 extended the findings of study 1 to actual face recognition from a line-up. The results showed that focussed meditation did improve identification accuracy rates, however, focussed meditation did not show a beneficial effect on witness reports, which is incongruent with previous research in the area and something that was addressed in a study further on in the thesis. Study 3 extended the focussed meditation to voice recognition, with the thinking being, that both faces and voices are processed in the same manner. Results of the study showed a beneficial effect of the focussed meditation instruction on voice recognition. In this particular study, eye closure was assessed in conjunction with focussed meditation and there were beneficial effects of both on recognition and witness reports. 2 Study 4 examined an issue that arose during study 2 and 3. Previous research around focussed meditation had shown an additive effect of the instruction coupled with eye closure, leading to more accurate witness reporting, however, both study 2 and 3 of this thesis showed no such effect. It was therefore hypothesised that the issue had arisen due to the time between the initial focussed meditation instruction and the free recall section of the studies. Study 4 looked to address this situation by introducing the focussed meditation exercise prior to each of the facial recognition line-ups, the voice recognition line-up and 3 prior to both the free recall and cued recall sections of the study. The results showed that the introduction of the focussed meditation exercise, coupled with the eye closure, prior to each of the sections, did provide for more accurate reporting, thus suggesting that there is a time limit to the positive effects of focussed meditation. Taken together as a whole, the findings suggest that focussed meditation primes global processing, which is congruent with both face and voice recognition. The findings also demonstrate that there is a time limit to the effects of focussed meditation and therefore an application in order to refresh, prior to each line-up and the reporting, could make a significant difference. The findings also showed the benefits of eye closure on witness reporting and also suggest a more cognitive load theory of eye closure

How input modality and visual experience affect the representation of categories in the brain

The general aim of the present dissertation was to participate in the progress of our understanding of how sensory input and sensory experience impact on how the human brain implements categorical knowledge. The goal was twofold: (1) understand whether there are brain regions that encode information about different categories regardless of input modality and sensory experience (study 1); (2) deepen the investigation of the mechanisms that drive cross-modal and intra-modal plasticity following early blindness and the way they express during the processing of different categories presented as real-world sounds (study 2). To address these fundamental questions, we used fMRI to characterize the brain responses to different conceptual categories presented acoustically in sighted and early blind individuals, and visually in a separate sighted group. In study 1, we observed that the right posterior middle temporal gyrus (rpMTG) is the region that most reliably decoded categories and selectively correlated with conceptual models of our stimuli space independently of input modality and visual experience. However, this region maintains separate the representational format from the different modalities, revealing a multimodal rather than an amodal nature. In addition, we observed that VOTC showed distinct functional profiles according to the hemispheric side. The left VOTC showed an involvement in the acoustical categorization processing at the same degree in sighted and in blind individuals. We propose that this involvement might reflect an engagement of the left VOTC in more semantic/linguistic processing of the stimuli potentially supported by its enhanced connection with the language system. However, paralleling our observation in rpMTG, the representations from different modalities are maintained segregated in VOTC, showing little evidence for sensory-abstraction. On the other side, the right VOTC emerged as a sensory-related visual region in sighted with the ability to rewires itself toward acoustical stimulation in case of early visual deprivation. In study 2, we observed opposite effects of early visual deprivation on auditory decoding in occipital and temporal regions. While occipital regions contained more information about sound categories in the blind, the temporal cortex showed higher decoding in the sighted. This unbalance effect was stronger in the right hemisphere where we, also, observed a negative correlation between occipital and temporal decoding of sound categories in EB. These last results suggest that the intramodal and crossmodal reorganizations might be inter-connected. We therefore propose that the extension of non-visual functions in the occipital cortex of EB may trigger a network-level reorganization that reduce the computational load of the regions typically coding for the remaining senses due to the extension of such computation in occipital regions

An exploratory investigation of the everyday musical experiences of adults and adolescents who have a visual impairment

This thesis explores the musical lives of adults and adolescents who have a visual impairment. It considers the various facets of their musical engagement including the functions fulfilled by music, beliefs regarding the importance of music in their lives, recorded listening experiences and the use of technology, and motivations and functions relating to live music event attendance. This thesis is the first to explore the wide-ranging experiences which make up the everyday musical lives of both musicians and non-musicians who have a visual impairment. The thesis offers a systematic investigation of this topic using mixed-methods and offers alternative perspectives to research which has focused on associations between visual impairment and heightened musical ability, or the musical experiences of children with visual impairments. This thesis also considers the potential challenges and barriers experienced by individuals who have a visual impairment in relation to musical engagement. Three studies were undertaken. Qualitative data was gathered during focus groups, which informed the design of a series of semi-structured interviews. Interpretative phenomenological analysis provided the theoretical and analytical grounding for these interviews, allowing detailed exploration of the individuals’ experiences. In turn, these interviews informed the design of a survey, which collected predominantly quantitative data. Questions were designed to explore salient topics identified in the previous studies, across a larger sample. Results highlight the central role that music played in the lives of many participants, with some suggesting an association between having a visual impairment and the importance of music. This was reflected in the range of functions fulfilled by music, some of which appeared to be unique to the needs of this group. For many, technology had impacted positively on musical engagement, however, results also demonstrated potential barriers to technological engagement for music listening. Similarly, participants enjoyed a range of music-making activities and engagement with live events, but challenges were also identified in relation to these experiences. Findings have important implications for the accessibility of music to individuals who have a visual impairment, for whom low vision, or changes to their vision, may negatively impact on their musical engagement. Furthermore, insight into the experiences of attendees who have a visual impairment at musical events offers a valuable contribution to the discourse surrounding the challenge of attracting and engaging members of underrepresented groups within arts audiences. Ultimately, this thesis provides a comprehensive exploration of the musical lives of adults and adolescents who have a visual impairment and identifies how access to music and musical experiences might be improved