Talk:Human echolocation

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[edit] Playing videogames? Pressure? HOAX?

This sounds as a hoax... Non-blind people (me included) can walk around objects and gain some insight of their pressence, I've done that just for the thrill of trying to use my skills instead of sight to walk around, its hard to keep the yes closed but what gave away the presence or absence of objects around me, even more so that sound, was the change in light intensity moving through my lids, people who can see and have read this article will probably attribute this minor form of sight (reduced to detecting light's intensity) as echolocation manifested in pressure, because instinctively one's body reacts to this stimulus with something akin to fear that invents the idea of pressure, as we connect the concept of unexplained pressure to what is supernatural and what is supernatural to risks we cannot fully grasp, such as whatever causes the shadow on one's closed lids... however, this is not all...

NOT EVEN THE BEST ECHOLOCATION CAN MAKE SENSE OF DUODIMENSIONAL FIGURES OR COLOURS, THAT IS YOU CANNOT MAKE SENSE OF PAINTINGS OR IMAGES ON A TELEVISION SCREEN WITH ECHOLOCATION, EVEN LESS PLAY VIDEOGAMES!!!!---GTB 22:38 11/10/2006

The kid who plays videogames said that he listens to the sounds of the game to figure out what is going on. --Burbster 11:54, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
If you take a look at the video, you can tell that he is echolocating the person's hands and controller, but I may be wrong. He could definitely use the sound to figure out what's going on. Anyway, I think this is pretty cool. It's not a hoax, he doesn't have eyes (the ones he has are glass). --CanesOL79 17:41, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
I personally think it's a hoax, it would be impossible to echo locate peoples fingers on the pad considering it shows him playing a DS on his own. I think more references should be up. Wolfmankurd (talk) 22:44, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hearing

Something of interest to note, though I'm hardly a good enough writer to work it in, is that humans are usually held to have poor stereoscopic hearing (ears on the sides of our heads, after all.. comparable to animals' eye-placement) and that this is why ventriloquism works. It causes one to wonder how humans could ever echolocate properly.

  • There is a recent article on New Scientist website which details some research into hearing and vision. See: How the brain can hear shapes ... this may well be a partial explanation into human echolocation. Magicalpath 03:00, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge

I placed a merge request to replace the redirect. Please don't redirect if they are different topics. I don't really feel they should merge but they shouldn't be redirected either.--Jondel 00:47, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] tree pressure

i've walked around in public places with my eyes closed (i want to be an echolocator). while doing that i have walked past tall skinny things such as (stobey) poles and trees and felt a sensation that was mapped onto my face which i think is the "pressure" that is referred to in the article.

i listened at the same time and noticed that the pressure sensation came with a drop in ambient noise in the direction of the tall skinny thing. i picture it as the pressure is me feeling the shadow of the pole-like structure (think of the ambient noise being light).

i certainly do not believe the effect is from mental processing of the echo of footsteps. i feel the effect when i cannot hear an echo (i know this is not a disproof), even when i walk past something made of foam or leaves (like a bush) that would absorb the incident sound on it.

of course this is all original research so i don't think i can include it. but i think i'll remove that "The cause of this would be the echo of..." sentence because i strongly disagree with it and it's a purely speculative sentence anyway. inlogger 20:54, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Daniel Kish contribution

I've searched for info on Daniel Kish's contribution to this topic, and all I find are a few mentions that he is blind and taught himself to echolocate, and reference to hiw own web site and his unpublished master's thesis. Not to belittle what he has done, but these don't really qualify as verifiable sources. And the field was pretty well along without him. The article feels like it has been written by a friend of his. I suggest removing him, unless someone can point out a verifiable source. Dicklyon 22:40, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Here are some refs I found at [1] and [2]:

Kish, C. D. (1995). Evaluation of an echo-mobility program 
for young blind people. Unpublished master’s
thesis, California State University, San Bernadino.
  [132] D. Kish, “Echolation: How Humans Can ‘See’ without Sight,” 
at http://worldaccessfortheblind.org/thesis.txt; 
revised version of unpublished M.S. thesis
“Evaluation of an Echo-Mobility Training Program for
Young Blind Persons,” California State University, San
Bernardino, CA (1995).
  [133] D. Kish and H. Bleier, “Echolocation: What 
 It Is and How It Can Be Taught and Learned,” 
at http://worldaccessfortheblind.org/echolocation.rtf; 
presented to California Association for Orientation and Mobility
Specialists (2000).

[edit] Ray Charles

The reason given for deleating the information about Ray Charles doesn't make any sense +[citation needed]» He didn't teach Ray Charles

The information came from the film Ray and the reference states that so there is your citation never claimed it was tought to him by anyone.

It's been fixed. Dicklyon 20:27, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

How is a movie based on the life of the very real Ray Charles considered "fiction"? Are you suggesting that the producers made this fact up about Mr. Charles? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.255.62.44 (talk) 10:21, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Are you saying that Ray was a documentary? I don't think it was. If we have a statement about Ray's hearing from a non-fiction source, we can use that, of course. Dicklyon (talk) 04:15, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vision and Hearing refs

A sources tag has been added to this section. Most of the content is pretty general, and is supported by the works already cited. If there are specific sentences that you feel need a verifiable source, please add fact tags after them. Otherwise, I'm not sure what is worth looking for. I'll take out the sources tag for now. Dicklyon 20:27, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge from facial vision

  • Obviously. I'll just do it. Dicklyon 04:28, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Learned skill or ineffiable talent?

While this phenomenon is acknowledged as a reality, what is not clear is whether or not human echolocation is a teachable skill- as the bit about Daniel Kish teaching the art of echolocation would seem to indicate- or some ineffiable, unteachable talent based on some freak confluence of excellent hearing and a brain well-suited to the task of echolocation- as the huge number of blind people throughout history and the extremely small proportion of them that appear to have learned to echolocate would seem to indicate. If human echolocation is an acknowledged phenomenon and it is teachable even to some small degree, why isn't its teaching part of standard therapy for the blind? -Toptomcat 03:31, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

The documentary Extraordinary People has a segment on Ben Underwood, one of the blinded person mentioned in this article. He self-taught this skill. During the documentary he met Daniel Kish, another person mentioned in this article. Daniel Kish has a program teaching other blinded people echolocation. Given the amount of people who self-taught this skill is so low, I doubt it will get big anytime soon. I do hope the government will step in and fund more research so that this skill can be propagated. --Voidvector 08:12, 9 October 2007 (UTC)