Auditory perception of objects by blind persons, using a bioacoustic high resolution air sonar.

A high-resolution octave band air sonar for spatial sensing and object imaging by blind persons is described. The system has wide-angle overlapping peripheral fields of view with a narrow central field superposed. It is noninvasively coupled to the auditory system for neural processing and spatial imaging. Blind persons learn to comprehend the auditory cortical multiple-object image that is created. The real-time synchronous relationship between hearing a change in the sensor sounds and the sensed motor actions causing the change seems to aid the learning process. Computer based testing of the sensor system is described so as to relate the physical system performance with the time-varying human auditory perception. This is so that the basic psychometric experiments studying the sensor bio-acoustic spatial resolution, resulting from the superposition of two wide-angle peripheral fields with one central narrow field, may be better understood. These tests confirm that the auditory ability of subjects to resolve close objects using the combined fields is significantly improved relative to using the peripheral fields alone. These measurements are supported by blind children learning to use the sensor system.