[Nfbf-l] Is 'seeing' with sounds better than sight restoration in the early blind?

[Alan Dicey]

Dear Friends,

Appended is the abstract of an upcoming presentation at IMRF 2013
(International Multisensory Research Forum) in Jerusalem, June 3-6, 2013.

Best wishes,

Peter Meijer
Seeing with Sound - The vOICe ( O I C)
http://www.seeingwithsound.com/winvoice.htm

'Visual'-parsing without visual experience:
Is 'seeing' with sounds better than sight restoration in the early blind?
Abstract.
Early-blind individuals who regained sight medically in adulthood, 
demonstrated that functional-vision acquisition in adulthood is challenging. For 
instance, Ostrovsky et al.1 reported poor behavior in static-visual-parsing (i.e.
segregating the image into distinct unified objects), a critical visual 
concept and an ability required for performing any visual task in 
natural-environments.
Another rehabilitation approach is to use non-invasive
Sensory-Substitution-Devices (SSDs), which transform visual images into 
sounds.
Various abilities were demonstrated using SSDs, however 'visual'-parsing was
never directly tested.
Here we tested whether congenitally-blind adults can learn to perform
'visual'-parsing with SSD, using similar stimuli and approach to those used 
by Ostrovsky et al.1, but this time with the visual information conveyed 
through sounds; and compared the SSD users' performance to that reported for the
medically-sight-restored individuals.
The SSD users performed significantly above chance-level, following only ~  70 training hours. Interestingly, they outperformed the  sight-restored-individuals, who had months of constant eyesight, in all tasks tested. In a second test,  we found that the SSD users could discern the vantage-point of 3D objects from  2D SSD images, a task requiring correct parsing (at least in the local-level).
Theoretically, the results demonstrate that the adult brain retains visual learning capacity; and suggests that with adequate training and technologies
some high-order visual aspects can be acquired in adulthood, even without 
any visual-experience during developmental critical-periods. Practically, the
results support the potential use of SSDs as standalone daily-aids, but also
suggest a potential for combining invasive-restoration approaches with SSD 
input and/or training to improve and enhance rehabilitation.

References.

1) Ostrovsky Y, Meyers E, Ganesh S, Mathur U, Sinha P. Visual Parsing After
Recovery From Blindness. Psychological Science 2009; 20 (12): 1484-1491.

By Lior Reich, Miriam Guendelman and Amir Amedi.

Source URL:
http://shoreserv.mcmaster.ca/IMRF/ocs5/index.php/imrf/2013/paper/view/136 

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