Some Blind People Can 'See' Using Sound

[Hum]

A new study confirms how adept some blind people are at ?echolocation?? tracking objects near them by making clicks and interpreting the echoes?and identifies the brain regions involved. The skill is more typically associated with bats and dolphins.

A 43-year-old man who had been sightless since 13 months was able to locate a pole placed five feet away to within three degrees of its position, using oral clicks. He was tested along with a 27-year-old who?d been blind for 13 years, who had slightly lesser (yet still formidable) echolocation skills, and two control subjects, with no such ability. Both blind subjects were able to tell when a panel placed 1.3 feet away from them was flat or concave, and whether it was 20 degrees to the right or left.* Outdoors, they could say when they were standing in front of a car, tree, or light pole.

For the scanning part of the study, researchers first placed microphones in the subjects? ears and recorded their clicks and echoes, in the lab and outdoors. Those sounds were later played back, through in-ear devices, as they lay in a scanner.

When listening to clicks and echoes, the blind subjects, but not the controls, displayed heightened activity in part of the brain associated with visual processing. What?s more, when the researchers created an artificial soundtrack that preserved clicks but lacked echoes, the blind subjects no longer showed activity showed less activity in the visual cortex. It seemed to be specifically the echoes that set off the increased that activity.

In real life, the study said, the blind subjects use echolocation to hike, ride mountain bikes, and play basketball.

source

[thechronic]

Like dolphins? can i swim with blind people then? lol

[Nagisan]

I'm only still curious to how well this works in loud environments.....I can understand this working when your clicks are louder than ambient noise, but I don't see this working well when you are unable to hear the clicks due to high ambient noise.

My father however was much more doubtful that humans were capable of such an ability due to how the human ears are located on the head (difficult to tell sounds from directly in front and behind you apart) until I showed him a few videos of a blind person doing it (this was a few years ago).

[Charisma Veteran]

That is so very cool. Absolutely fascinating :)

[DocM]

An exaggerated version of this "blind sight" is the basis of the Marvel character DareDevil, and the 2003 films effects team did a great job of visually representing it. In fact; blind entertainer Tom Sullivan was tech advisor.

[neoadorable]

this is very good, anything to bring hope and joy. one day so much suffering will be a thing of the past!

[Growled Member]

It's amazing to me how the human body adapts. Lose one sense and another one over develops to compensate.

[Mr.XXIV]

Bless the blind, i never knew this was true! I mean..hell boy yea, but wow! :D

[DocM]

Nagisan -

one proposed mechanism is that the brain re-wires itself to pass auditory data to parts of the visual centers. In this case echolocation is precisely what is going on, and as with the comic character DareDevil, loud sounds are disruptive.

Also, some cases of blindness only involve concious sight - but the unconcious mind is at least partly aware of its surroundings. In this mechanism the concious mind has to be trained to 'let go' and fly on auto-pilot.

[neoadorable]

i really hope human science can give hope in this area...it's terrible the suffering people go through, and if it can be helped we need to do everything to get there.