Seeing Without Eyes
October 24, 2007 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
A few days ago, in describing echolocation in bats, I considered whether Charlie might hum and warble to help situate himself in space. An October 22nd Neurophilsophy post talks about Ben Underwood, who is blind and uses echolocation—and rides a bike, skateboards, and plays computer games. You can see Underwood on YouTube in a video entitled The Boy Who Sees Without Eyes. Maybe the eyes don’t always have it when you need to figure out where you are.
What an interesting idea! I’ve got this theory that autism is caused by some areas of the brain being strengthened, leaving other areas weakened (an overshooting of a general process of producing focussed intelligence) and though I’ve heard a number of autistic strengths suggested, I don’t remember anyone mentioning echolocation. Sounds like a possibility to me.
Could be?!
I know that I’m sensitive enough that I have an extremely vague blindsight. I don’t usually hum for the effect, though, because I can usually tell where I am, though it may not be intuitive (because I am generally aware of the sounds of my breathing and the like).
Cliff
This is very interesting! Although Brendan’s vision is 20/20, early visual/perceptual difficulties have resulted in his not having developed the habit (no other way to explain it) of looking at things. He didn’t have binocular convergence until he was nearly 7 years old, after some months of intense therapy, & as far as we can tell visual information didn’t make much sense to him until then. He does function very well, although the lack of “looking” skills catches him up at times- zipping his jacket, tieing shoes, figuring out what time it is (or what time of day). He also is a constant singer/hummer & this news makes me wonder if sound is helping him navigate the world visually as well as he does…
Mobility training for blind people includes a type of echolocation. They use the white cane not just for feeling the ground ahead, but they listen to its echo and changing sound as well.