I found news video reporting on the "vOICe seeing with sound technology". (In case you were wondering, the capital letters OIC in "voice" literally mean, "Oh, I see!").
What interests me about this concept is the aspect of "sensory substitution" - literally, using the input from one sense to replace another malfunctioning or missing sense. As the name of the organization obviously denotes, Seeing with Sound actively manufactures sound equipment for blind patrons, actually allowing each user to experience "sight" through the combination of the equipment and their own ears. Pat Fletcher, the woman featured in the video, claims that the noises generated by the machine "trigger [her] own memories" of sight and, because of these memories, allow her to see the world around her.
The video does admit that the equipment is "hard to master"; to our class, this literally means the input is difficult for the users to receive for reasons relating to the critical characteristics of input.
- One, if the user typically has no background "seeing" with this particular machine (or no experience of seeing at all), she has no relation to prior knowledge; quite literally, since this machine is one-of-a-kind, there is no previous experience the user can rest on in order to bolster her understanding of the unique sounds emitted from the machine.
- Two, while the input designated by the machine may be presented clearly (meaning the sounds are easily heard), the pattern for deciphering the meaning behind the sounds is complex and different for each individual stimuli (for example, a sapling may sound different from a sequoia but both are still registered as "tree" to the machine).
Also, I had a question about this method:
The woman in the video, Pat Fletcher, was blinded by an freak accident; she was not born without sight. She has memories of images of the world, which she says "the vOICe" system triggers and allows her to see. Would this system work for people who were born without sight and therefore have no prior knowledge of what the world looks like? I know that it would be more difficult, but is it possible? What do you think?
Here is the link to the news video: Seeing with Sound: Pat Fletcher's Story
Here is the link to the Seeing with Sound website: The vOICe
In response to your question, I always wonder what people who have never had sight think that things "look" like. Do they have an intricate "visiospatial sketchpad" to help create representations of things, and what do these representations look like? This leads to bigger questions about the nature of subjective perception and relativity. Eek!
ReplyDeleteHannah,
ReplyDeleteI certainly do not claim to know this answer, but here is what I think. :) If the vOICe system relies on past visual memories, I don't think someone who was born without sight would be able to use it. It really highlights the importance of past experiences and how those might be utilized for future learning situations. Sensory substitution is definitely an interesting area of research though, which could seemingly be utilized for many purposes.