[Nfbf-l] Blind Sight: The next generation of sensory substitution technology.

[Alan Dicey]

Dear Friends,
This article might be welcome after some of my last messages, as I of course 
realize many Blind folks have damaged Optic Nerves, or even no Optic Nerves, 
or even no eyes.
The last sentence in this article below will make this article very clear
and why it was written, and that sentence is:

"we see with our brains, not with our eyes."

With Best Regards,
God Bless,
Alan
Plantation, Florida
- -
Blind Sight: The next generation of sensory substitution technology.
By Dana Smith | April 28, 2014.

It's long been known that blind people are able to compensate for their loss 
of sight by using other senses, relying on sound and touch to help them 
 "see" the world. Neuroimaging studies have backed this up, showing that in 
blind people brain regions devoted to sight become rewired to process touch 
and sound as visual information.

Now, in the age of Google Glass, smartphones and self-driving cars, new 
technology offers ever more advanced ways of substituting one sensory 
experience for another. These exciting new devices can restore sight to the 
blind in ways never before thought possible.

Seeing with the Ears.

One approach is to use sound as a stand-in for vision. In a study published 
in Current Biology, neuroscientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem 
used a "sensory substitution device" dubbed "the vOICe" (Oh, I See!) to 
enable congenitally blind patients to see using sound. The device translates 
visual images into brief bursts of music, which the participants then learn 
to decode.
Over a series of training sessions they learn, for example, that a short, 
loud synthesizer sound signifies a vertical line, while a longer burst 
equates to a horizontal one. Ascending and descending tones reflect the 
corresponding directions, and pitch and volume relay details about 
elevation, brightness and even color. Layering these sound qualities and 
playing several in sequence (each burst lasts about one second) thus 
gradually builds an image as simple as a basic shape or as complex as a 
landscape.

The concept has tried and true analogs in the animal world, says Dr. Amir 
Amedi, the lead researcher on the study. "The idea is to replace information 
from a missing sense by using input from a different sense. It's just like 
bats and dolphins use sounds and echolocation to 'see' using their ears."

Starting with sounds for basic shapes and lines, the participants in the 
recent study worked their way up to being able to identify bodily forms and 
positions - "seeing" them in their mind even though they had never before 
caught sight of a human form. Remarkably, after approximately 70 hours of 
training, the blind participants were able to convert the sounds into visual 
activity in their brains, tapping into the same areas as control subjects 
who had seen the target images. This included a specific part of the visual 
cortex - the extrastriate body area (EBA) - that is specially activated when 
perceiving human shapes and positions.

These participants had never before been able to perceive an entire human 
body.
They could grab a hand, touch a cheek, even wrap someone in a bear hug, but 
they didn't know what a person looked like squatting down, standing on one 
leg, or pumping their fists in the air. Yet despite this, these individuals 
were able to activate a very specific area of the visual cortex just by 
hearing certain sounds, correctly identifying these positions.

According to Dr. Amedi, the brain is able to transfer the initial activation 
in the auditory cortex into the "correct" visual area of the brain. "What is 
going on is neuronal recycling, in the sense that the same neurons [are] 
doing the same task, but now with a different sensory modality."

Navigating with the Fingertips.

Technological advancements are also allowing blind individuals to do 
something many never dreamed possible: driving a car.

Research being done at the Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory at Virginia 
Tech, led by Dr. Dennis Hong, has led to a prototype car for blind drivers. 
To accomplish this, Hong and his team tapped into the visual system through 
touch, rather than sound. Employing technology used in the self-driving car, 
Hong and his team modified a computer-driven vehicle to allow drivers to 
pilot it solely using touch, relying on instructional feedback transmitted 
through sensors in the car.

Lasers in the front of the car serve as the automobile's eyes, collecting 
information about obstacles and the boundaries of the road. Specialized 
gloves then relay this information to the driver to help them steer, 
gradually vibrating the fingertips on either hand in the direction the car 
should be turned. A vibrating chair provides guidance on optimal speed: the 
placement and intensity of the vibrations tell the driver to speed up, slow 
down or come to an emergency stop. Finally, air puffs coming out of a 
tablet-like device located next to the driver create a map on their palms 
and fingertips to help them navigate the road ahead. This allows the driver 
to make advanced decisions, giving them greater independence over the 
automated feedback from the car.

Although he's gotten flack for the project - blind drivers making some 
people nervous for obvious reasons - Dr. Hong has demonstrated that the car 
is safe and effective, and it's been successfully taken out for several 
flawless test drives by blind individuals. The National Federation of the 
Blind has also lauded the project for enabling the drivers to be actively 
engaged in the process, rather than passive passengers being shuttled around 
on autopilot. Dr. Hong and his team are still refining the process, 
improving both the car's sensory input and tactile output systems, and at 
the moment the car has only been tested on a closed track, but the ultimate 
ambition is to one day have it out on the open road.

Mountain-Climbing with the Tongue.

A more unusual part of the body has also been recruited to help blind 
individuals see through touch: the tongue. Your mouth is a highly sensitive 
area with a disproportionate number of neurons dedicated to it; the 
homunculus, the carnival-like depiction of our body as expressed in our 
brain, shows it as having greater sensory significance than the entire 
torso.

The inventors of BrainPort have put this lingual sensitivity to use, 
developing a device that converts visual stimuli into small electrical 
bursts on the tongue. An array of 400 electrodes on an area a little larger 
than a postage stamp sits on the tongue and receives input from a video 
camera hooked up to a set of snazzy sunglasses, ala Google Glass. The visual 
signal is processed through a small computer connected to the device, with 
the camera pixels corresponding to different electrodes in the array. This 
visual information is thus translated and spit out as electrical pulses on 
the tongue, varying in intensity, duration, location and number depending on 
the incoming signal.
The researchers describe the pulses as feeling like bubbles or sparkling 
water on the tongue.

In perhaps the most incredible demonstration of this sensory substitution 
technology, one man has been using BrainPort to climb mountains. Extreme 
athlete Erik Weihenmayer, the only blind person to ever scale Mount Everest, 
uses the tactile information on his tongue to navigate mountainous terrain. 
With the device, he is able to judge the size, distance and depth of his 
next target on a climbing wall or cliff face, seeing with the help of the 
vibrations on his tongue.

Like the vOICe, BrainPort activates the visual cortex, bypassing the damaged 
sensory circuitry in the eye. These technological advancements raise the 
possibility not only for these temporary sensory stand-ins, but also for 
potential permanent treatment options, circumventing the malfunctioning 
perceptual organ and accessing sensory regions in the brain that had 
previously been thought to lie dormant. For example, laser sensors implanted 
in the eye could replace bulky cameras, relaying visual information to a 
microchip that translates it into tactile or auditory sensations. Or 
electrodes inserted in the brain could be used to directly activate the 
visual cortex, negating the need to access these other sensory systems at 
all. For as neuroscientist Dr. Paul Bach-y-Rita, the pioneer of sensory 
substitution technology and BrainPort's co-creator, once said, "we see with 
our brains, not with our eyes."

Source URL:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2014/04/28/blind-sight-the-next-generation-of-sensory-substitution-technology/

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