Vorträge

Seeing with sound - A visual prosthesis for the blind?

Dr. Peter Meijer
Philips Research Labs

Technically, it is possible to convert live video from a camera into audio while preserving a significant amount of visual information in the resulting - usually highly complex - sounds. In principle, this could be applied as a non-invasive visual prosthesis for the blind, if blind people can learn to mentally reconstruct and interpret these sounds as images, thereby "seeing with sound". The technology is readily available today and is being explored by blind volunteers, but many questions remain about the type and degree of cross-modal wiring and plasticity needed and available in the human brain for learning to interpret image sounds, or "soundscapes".

This talk will give an overview of the main technical issues, as well as discuss some of the psychological and philosophical considerations, while trying to link up to the latest neuroscientific findings on cross-modal plasticity and occipital lobe activation by sound.

More information at http://www.visualprosthesis.com and http://www.seeingwithsound.com.

Zeit: Dienstag, den 24. Juni 2003, 17 Uhr c.t.

Ort: Institut für Neuro- und Bioinformatik
        TZL, Seelandstr. 1a, Geb. 5
        Seminarraum OG.3