Human echolocation
is the ability of humans to detect objects in their environment by
sensing echoes from those objects, by actively creating sounds: for
example, by tapping their canes,
lightly stomping their foot, snapping their fingers, or making clicking
noises with their mouths. People trained to orient by echolocation can
interpret the sound waves reflected by nearby objects, accurately identifying their location and size.
Background
The
term "echolocation" was coined by zoologist Donald Griffin in 1944;
however, reports of blind humans being able to locate silent objects
date back to 1749. Human echolocation has been known and formally studied since at least the 1950s.
In earlier times, human echolocation was sometimes described as "facial
vision" or "obstacle sense," as it was believed that the proximity of
nearby objects caused pressure changes on the skin.
Only in the 1940s did a series of experiments performed in the Cornell
Psychological Laboratory show that sound and hearing, rather than
pressure changes on the skin, were the mechanisms driving this ability. The field of human and animal echolocation was surveyed in book form as early as 1959.
Many blind individuals passively use natural environmental echoes
to sense details about their environment; however, others actively
produce mouth clicks and are able to gauge information about their
environment using the echoes from those clicks. Both passive and active echolocation help blind individuals learn about their environments.
Because sighted individuals learn about their environments using
vision, they often do not readily perceive echoes from nearby objects.
This is due to an echo suppression phenomenon brought on by the precedence effect.
However, with training, sighted individuals with normal hearing can
learn to avoid obstacles using only sound, showing that echolocation is a
general human ability.
Mechanics
Vision and hearing
are closely related in that they can process reflected waves of energy.
Vision processes light waves as they travel from their source, bounce
off surfaces throughout the environment and enter the eyes. Similarly,
the auditory system processes sound waves as they travel from their
source, bounce off surfaces and enter the ears. Both systems can extract
a great deal of information about the environment by interpreting the
complex patterns of reflected energy that they receive. In the case of
sound, these waves of reflected energy are called "echoes".
Echoes and other sounds can convey spatial information that is comparable in many respects to that conveyed by light.
With echoes, a blind traveler can perceive very complex, detailed, and
specific information from distances far beyond the reach of the longest
cane or arm. Echoes make information available about the nature and
arrangement of objects and environmental features such as overhangs,
walls, doorways and recesses, poles, ascending curbs and steps, planter
boxes, pedestrians, fire hydrants, parked or moving vehicles, trees and
other foliage, and much more. Echoes can give detailed information about
location (where objects are), dimension (how big they are and their
general shape), and density (how solid they are). Location is generally
broken down into distance from the observer and direction (left/right,
front/back, high/low). Dimension refers to the object's height (tall or
short) and breadth (wide or narrow).
By understanding the interrelationships of these qualities, much
can be perceived about the nature of an object or multiple objects. For
example, an object that is tall and narrow may be recognized quickly as a
pole. An object that is tall and narrow near the bottom while broad
near the top would be a tree. Something that is tall and very broad
registers as a wall or building. Something that is broad and tall in the
middle, while being shorter at either end may be identified as a parked
car. An object that is low and broad may be a planter, retaining wall,
or curb. And finally, something that starts out close and very low but
recedes into the distance as it gets higher is a set of steps. Density
refers to the solidity of the object (solid/sparse, hard/soft).
Awareness of density adds richness and complexity to one's available
information. For instance, an object that is low and solid may be
recognized as a table, while something low and sparse sounds like a
bush; but an object that is tall and broad and very sparse is probably a
fence.
Neural substrates of echolocation in the blind
Echo-related
activity in the brain of an early-blind echolocator is shown on the
left. There is no activity evident in the brain of a sighted person
(shown on the right) listening to the same echoes
Some blind people are skilled at echolocating silent objects simply by
producing mouth clicks and listening to the returning echoes, for
example Ben Underwood. Although few studies have been performed on the
neural basis of human echolocation, those studies report activation of primary visual cortex during echolocation in blind expert echolocators. The driving mechanism of this brain region remapping phenomenon is known as neuroplasticity.
In a 2014 study by Thaler and colleagues, the researchers first
made recordings of the clicks and their very faint echoes using tiny
microphones placed in the ears of the blind echolocators as they stood
outside and tried to identify different objects such as a car, a flag
pole, and a tree. The researchers then played the recorded sounds back
to the echolocators while their brain activity was being measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging.
Remarkably, when the echolocation recordings were played back to the
blind experts, not only did they perceive the objects based on the
echoes, but they also showed activity in those areas of their brain that
normally process visual information in sighted people, primarily primary visual cortex
or V1. This result is surprising, as visual areas, as their names
suggest, are only active during visual tasks. The brain areas that
process auditory information were no more activated by sound recordings
of outdoor scenes containing echoes than they were by sound recordings
of outdoor scenes with the echoes removed. Importantly, when the same
experiment was carried out with sighted people who did not echolocate,
these individuals could not perceive the objects and there was no
echo-related activity anywhere in the brain. This suggests that the
cortex of blind echolocators is plastic and reorganizes such that
primary visual cortex, rather than any auditory area, becomes involved
in the computation of echolocation tasks.
Despite this evidence, the extent to which activation in the
visual cortex in blind echolocators contributes to echolocation
abilities is unclear.
As previously mentioned, sighted individuals have the ability to
echolocate; however, they do not show comparable activation in visual
cortex. This would suggest that sighted individuals use areas beyond
visual cortex for echolocation.
Notable individuals who employ echolocation
Daniel Kish
Echolocation has been further developed by Daniel Kish, who works with the blind through the non-profit organization World Access for the Blind.
He leads blind teenagers hiking and mountain-biking through the
wilderness, and teaches them how to navigate new locations safely, with a
technique that he calls "FlashSonar". Kish had his eyes removed at the age of 13 months due to retinal cancer. He learned to make palatal clicks
with his tongue when he was still a child—and now trains other blind
people in the use of echolocation and in what he calls "Perceptual
Mobility".
Though at first resistant to using a cane for mobility, seeing it as a
"handicapped" device, and considering himself "not handicapped at all",
Kish developed a technique using his white cane combined with
echolocation to further expand his mobility.
Kish reports that "The sense of imagery is very rich for an
experienced user. One can get a sense of beauty or starkness or
whatever—from sound as well as echo."
He is able to distinguish a metal fence from a wooden one by the
information returned by the echoes on the arrangement of the fence
structures; in extremely quiet conditions, he can also hear the warmer
and duller quality of the echoes from wood compared to metal.
Thomas Tajo
Thomas Tajo was born in the remote Himalayan village of Chayang Tajo in the state of Arunachal Pradesh
in the north-east India and became blind around the age of 7 or 8 due
to optic nerve atrophy. Tajo taught himself to echolocate. Today he
lives in Belgium and works with Visioneers or World Access to impart
independent navigational skills to blind individuals across the world.
Tajo is also an independent researcher. He researches the cultural and
biological evolutionary history of the senses and presents his findings
to the scientific conferences around the world.
Ben Underwood
Ben Underwood
Nascimento: 26 de janeiro de 1992, Riverside, Califórnia, EUA
Diagnosed with retinal cancer at the age of two, American Ben Underwood had his eyes removed at the age of three.
He taught himself echolocation at the age of five. He was able to
detect the location of objects by making frequent clicking noises with
his tongue. This case was explained in 20/20: Medical Mysteries.
He used it to accomplish such feats as running, playing basketball,
riding a bicycle, rollerblading, playing football, and skateboarding.
He attended school at Edward Harris Jr. Middle School. Underwood's
childhood eye doctor claimed that Underwood was one of the most
proficient human echolocators.
Underwood died on January 19, 2009 at the age of 16, from the same cancer that took his vision.
Tom De Witte
Tom De Witte was born in 1979 in Belgium with bilateral congenital glaucoma. It had seemed that he would become a successful flautist
until he had to give up playing music in 2005. De Witte has been
completely blind since 2009 due to additional problems with his eyes. He
was taught echolocation by Daniel Kish and was given the nickname
"Batman from Belgium" by the press.
Dr. Lawrence Scadden
Scadden has written of his experiences with blindness.
He was not born blind, but lost his sight due to illness. As a child,
he learned to use echolocation well enough to ride a bicycle in traffic.
(His parents thought that he still had some sight remaining.) He later
participated in experiments in facial vision (White, et al. 1970). About
1998, he visited the Auditory Neuroethology Laboratory at the University of Maryland
and was interviewed about his experience with facial vision. The
researchers in the lab study bat echolocation and were aware of the Wiederorientierung phenomenon described by Griffin (1959), where bats, despite continuing to emit echolocation calls, use path integration
in familiar acoustic space. Scadden indicated that he found
echolocation required extra effort, and would not use it to navigate in
familiar areas unless he was alert for obstacles, thus providing insight
into the bat behavior.
The Regional Alliance of Science, Engineering and Mathematics for
Students with Disabilities (RASEM) and the Science Education for
Students With Disabilities (SESD), a Special Interest Group of the
National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) have created the Lawrence
A. Scadden Outstanding Teacher Award of the Year for Students With
Disabilities in his honor.
Lucas Murray
Lucas Murray,
from Poole, Dorset, was born blind. He is believed to be one of the
first British people to learn to visualise his surroundings using
echolocation, and was taught by Daniel Kish.
Kevin Warwick
The scientist Kevin Warwick
experimented with feeding ultrasonic pulses into the brain (via
electrical stimulation from a neural implant) as an additional sensory
input. In tests he was able to discern distance to objects accurately
and to detect small movements of those objects.
Juan Ruiz
Blind from birth, Juan Ruiz lives in Los Angeles, California. He appeared in the first episode of Stan Lee's Superhumans,
titled "Electro Man". The episode showed him capable of riding a
bicycle, avoiding parked cars and other obstacles, and identifying
nearby objects. He entered and exited a cave, where he determined its
length and other features.
In popular media
Toph Beifong
Toph is a fictional blind girl from the animated series Avatar: Last Airbender who uses a highly advanced form of echolocation through a technique called "earthbending" (telekinetic manipulation of elemental earth). Being born blind, she has developed hyper-sensitive mechanoreceptors
and is able to feel the minute vibrations in the Earth well enough to
create an accurate mental picture of her surroundings. Along with her
heightened sense of smell and hearing, she uses her abilities to succeed
in combat, though she's left vulnerable when her opponents are
airborne. Using her extremely refined abilities, she can also sense the
vibrations of a person's heart-rate and breath-rate, effectively
becoming a human polygraph.
Perception
The 2017 video game Perception places the player in the role of a blind woman who must use echolocation to navigate the environment.
The Last of Us
In Naughty Dog's 2013 PlayStation 3 game, The Last of Us, infected people called "clickers" use echolocation.
Imagine
In the 2012 movie Imagine,
the main character teaches echolocation to students at clinic for the
visually impaired. This unconventional method spurs a controversy but
helps students explore the world.
Daredevil
Matthew Murdock is a defense attorney by day and a crime-fighting vigilante by night, going by the name Daredevil, from Marvel Comics.
He was involved in an accident as a child where his eyes came in
contact with radioactive chemicals, effectively blinding him though it
did enhance his other senses (smell, hearing and touch) to superhuman
levels. If he concentrates hard enough, he is able to hear a person's
cry for help from blocks away. Like Toph Beifong, he can use his
super-hearing to detect a person's heartbeat as well as minute changes
of their breath rate and tone of voice, thus also becoming a human lie
detector. Also like Toph, he uses his abilities to his advantage in
combat.
Artificially stimulated echolocation for blind humans
Currently ongoing research
Project BATEYE
fundamentally uses an ultrasonic sensor mounted onto a wearable pair of
glasses that measures the distance to the nearest object and relays it
to an Arduino
board. The Arduino board then processes the measurements and then plays
a tone (150–15000 Hz) for the respective distance (2 cm to 4 m) till
the data from the next ultrasonic pulse (distance) comes in. This cycle
is repeated almost every 5 milliseconds. The person hears sound that
changes according to the distance to the nearest object. The head
provides a 195-degree swivel angle and the ultrasonic sensor detects
anything within a 15-degree angle. Using systematic, cognitive and
computational approach of neuroscience, with the hypothesis that the
usage of the occipital lobe of blind people goes into processing other
sensory feedback, and using the brain as a computational unit, the
machine relies on the brain processing the tone produced every 14 msec
to its corresponding distance and producing a soundscape corresponding
to the tones and the body navigating using the same. During
experimentation, the test subject could detect obstacles as far away as
2–3 m, with horizontal or vertical movements of the head the blindfolded
test subject could understand the basic shape of objects without
touching them, and the basic nature of the obstacles.
Similar research could potentially revolutionize navigation abilities of blind humans.
