In the first part of this study we examined visual capabilities of adult congenitally deaf cats and adult hearing cats on a wide range of visual tasks in order to define which visual abilities are involved in cross-modal compensation. For tests of visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, direction of motion discrimination, velocity discrimination, and orientation discrimination performance in the deaf cats was not different from that of the hearing cats. However, for two tests of visual detection (movement detection and detection of a flashed stimulus) the deaf cats demonstrated superior performance to that of the hearing cats. For the deaf cats, movement detection thresholds were <0.5deg/sec, while for the hearing cats thresholds were above >0.5deg/sec. At the most peripherally tested positions (≥60 degs), detection of a 100 msec flashed red LED stimulus was significantly better for the deaf cats than for the hearing cats. The second part of this study was to examine if cross-modal reorganization in auditory cortex may be contributing to the superior visual capabilities of deaf cats. To accomplish this, we bilaterally placed cooling loops on AI, DZ, and PAF to permit their individual deactivation. Deactivation of neither AI, nor DZ, altered performance on the movement detection or visual detection tasks. However, bilateral deactivation of PAF resulted in the elimination of the superior visual detection capabilities of the deaf cats and resulted in performance not different from the hearing cats. During bilateral deactivation of PAF, the elimination of superior performance was specific to the visual detection task, deactivation as superior performance did not change on the movement detection task. Therefore, in this study we demonstrate specific superior visual detection abilities in congenitally deaf cats and that cross-modal reorganization in PAF is responsible for some of the superior abilities.