My guess is that the difference is in the structure of the visual cortex vs auditory cortex, in addition to the difference between input sensors. In people who lack one of these two senses, the remaining one takes over most of the “unused” cortex. So it would be interesting to compare their qualia to the “standard” ones. I bet there is some literature to this effect.
Someone should do a large-scale study of peoples’ experiences of qualia for each sense. Much like Galton’s experiments with mental imagery, people could have wildly different experiences that we previously weren’t aware of. I’m not aware of any such studies, though, or studies that look into the relationship between sensory deficits and heightened experiences. Heightened sensitivity, sure, but not quality of experience. Philosophers don’t seem to do many psychology experiments.
My guess is that the difference is in the structure of the visual cortex vs auditory cortex, in addition to the difference between input sensors. In people who lack one of these two senses, the remaining one takes over most of the “unused” cortex. So it would be interesting to compare their qualia to the “standard” ones. I bet there is some literature to this effect.
Someone should do a large-scale study of peoples’ experiences of qualia for each sense. Much like Galton’s experiments with mental imagery, people could have wildly different experiences that we previously weren’t aware of. I’m not aware of any such studies, though, or studies that look into the relationship between sensory deficits and heightened experiences. Heightened sensitivity, sure, but not quality of experience. Philosophers don’t seem to do many psychology experiments.