Look with ears

The blind is known for its echolocation to 'look' around its surroundings, and new research shows that bright-eyed people can still learn this.

>>>Blind people have the ability to locate by sound

When a bat flies in the air, it quickly emits a series of high-pitched clicks, at speeds of up to 200 hours per second and at frequencies that exceed hearing ability in humans. Of course, bats have no problem hearing those noises, and analyzing how sound bounces when hitting objects around them before returning to their ears. By tracking volume, directional and echo-based signals, bats can clearly see things in pitch-black environments.

In recent years, more and more evidence has confirmed that people, both visually impaired and bright eyes, are able to do the same thing. Unlike bats or dolphins, whales and a few other species, 'seeing' with the ears is not an innate ability. Some studies show that there are still people who learn how to locate by sound. Many of these studies were visually impaired, needed to develop that ability to replace damaged eyes for a variety of reasons, and this phenomenon had been known since the 18th century. especially Mr. Daniel Kish, born in 1966 in California (USA), who lost his eyesight when he was about 1 year old but resonated all over the world by climbing, cycling and living alone in the wild. Kish, nicknamed 'live bat' , is able to carry out all these challenges thanks to his extraordinary ability to 'see' by echolocation. To do this, Kish made a sound by turning his tongue into the palate, and training would make it easier to clog the tongue over time. However, the phenomenon is less well studied in bright eyes.

The sighted person can still hear like a "blind knight" - (Photo: Shutterstock)

In a new report published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B , biologists at Ludwig Maximulian Munich University (LMU - Germany) focused on studying annihilation in humans, a phenomenon of human brain eliminating the sound of echoes so that the original sound can be heard more clearly. Accordingly, participants with normal vision were asked to wear a headset with a microphone. In the 'listening' experiment, they heard sounds and echoes, and had to distinguish the location of the sound sources. In the 'echolocation' section , they are asked to create sounds, using their mouths or tongues. A computer processor recreates the echo of these sounds when touching the reflecting surface, and replaying it through the headset. The results showed that in the 'listening' experiment, the main sound perception ability caused the echo to be suppressed by the brain, but the next time, both the original and the echo were perceived equally, showing the Echo cancellation has been disabled in the process of locating the sound that is often referred to by the brain as a form of interference.

So if people can locate in echoes, why don't we use that ability in every situation?'Unless you go crazy in an ink-black environment, or blindfolded, echolocation is rarely necessary , ' said neuroscientist Lore Thaler of Durham University (UK). Therefore, it is easy to understand why this skill supports well in the case of blind people, although the bright eyes can still learn how to locate in echoes.