Seeing With Sound: More on Artificial Vision
April 26th, 2007 by janetIn my post Choosing Blindness Over Sight I raised the issue of the brain’s ability to continue “seeing” both when vision had been lost and when a person had been born blind. The inference here was that the blind person formed mental images of the environment which were as clear as vision.
But this isn’t the only way a blind person can interpret his/her world. It is also possible to see through sound.
In the Seeing With Sound website, this seemingly unbelievable fact is explained. In summary, visual images captured by a video camera are converted into sound waves which the blind person then translates back into images. When you listen to a demonstration of this phenomenon, it is very confusing. The sound waves change their pattern depending on the object in front of the video camera. To understand what that object is, the blind person also needs to use his or her sense of touch. It is then a matter of training the brain to recognise the different sound patterns and turn them into images.
Sound confusing? Well, yes it is, for the uninitiated. When I listened to the sound patterns for a bowl of popcorn, a door frame and blinds, I couldn’t “see” what the trained blind person could see. But it obviously takes much time and patience to become competent in seeing with sound.
In the broadcast I listened to on this site, the brain’s ability to interpret sound images was tested by a neuro-scientist. MRI imaging of two people listening to sound waves - one who was blind from birth, and one who had lost vision later in life - showed the visual cortex being activated in both subjects. This again proves that the visual cortex does not stop functioning once sight has been lost. In fact, the scientist in this experiment believes that we use all our senses to “see”, and that much more of the brain is used to bring us visual images.
As fascinated as I am in this new way of seeing, I think I’ll stick with my mental images for now. I find the repetitiveness of the sound waves distracting and annoying. But for others, it works, bringing them vision that they otherwise would not have. And that’s a great thing.
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April 26th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
Dear Janet,
Thank you for this excellent article! Our main goal is indeed that
the soundscapes should give corresponding realistic mental images,
while the sound of the soundscapes is no longer or barely noticed,
like we find in anecdotal user reports. Ideally this would become
analogous to a sighted person reading a beautiful story and not
noticing or caring about the (ugly) font with which the story was
printed. Still, your points are well-taken, and we are working hard
to find new ways to reduce the very significant learning effort
and establish what users may reasonably expect from their efforts.
Thank you and best wishes,
Peter Meijer
Seeing with Sound - The vOICe
http://www.seeingwithsound.com
April 26th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
Hi Peter,
Thank you so much for that lovely analogy. I’m sure you will achieve this. I was just so amazed at how Pat was able to work with the soundscapes so easily. It must be a great feeling to have mastered it and to “see” your environment, especially things like mountains and planes in the sky.
Keep up the exciting work.
Janet
February 13th, 2008 at 1:22 am
Thanks for the enlightening article!