In 1688, John Locke (1632-1704)published a question put to him by William Molyneux 1656-1698), which henceforthbecame known as Molyneux’s question. Thisquestion asked whether an adult born blind, if restored to sight might be ableto identify and distinguish, with vision alone, objects that he/she hadpreviously only experienced through touch. Molyneux, Locke, and a little later George Berkeley 1685-1753), were in agreement that the answer was ‘no’. Berkeley in particular, was of the view thatthe senses were quite distinct in nature providing completely different formsof information that were irreconcilable without the construction of cross-modalassociations through experience. The noanswer quite clearly implies an account of development in which infants andchildren have to learn to associate previously separate sensations acrossmultiple sense modalities. On the otherhand, a positive answer implies, rather as in the intersensory redundancyhypothesis, that infants and adults have perceptual access to a coherentmultisensory environment independent of experience. Since being posed, Molyneux’s question has receivedconsiderable attention in philosophy and, later, psychology. It remains of seminal importance.
See Amodal, Developmental differentiation, Developmental integration, Intersensory redundancy hypothesis