Depth Echolocation Learnt by Novice Sighted People.

ABSTRACT: Some blind people have developed a unique technique, called echolocation, to orient themselves in unknown environments. More specifically, by self-generating a clicking noise with the tongue, echolocators gain knowledge about the external environment by perceiving more detailed object features. It is not clear to date whether sighted individuals can also develop such an extremely useful technique. To investigate this, here we test the ability of novice sighted participants to perform a depth echolocation task. Moreover, in order to evaluate whether the type of room (anechoic or reverberant) and the type of clicking sound (with the tongue or with the hands) influences the learning of this technique, we divided the entire sample into four groups. Half of the participants produced the clickin

SUBMITTER: Tonelli A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4892586 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature