[accessibleimage] 'Lollipop' Helps Reveal Shapes To the Blind
- From: Lisa Yayla <fnugg@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "accessibleimage@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <accessibleimage@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "art_beyond_sight_learning_tools@xxxxxxxxxx" <art_beyond_sight_learning_tools@xxxxxxxxxx>, Access to Art Museums <artbeyondsightmuseums@xxxxxxxxxx>, Art Beyond Sight Advocacy <art_beyond_sight_advocacy@xxxxxxxxxx>, Art Beyond Sight Educators List <art_beyond_sight_educators@xxxxxxxxxx>, Art Beyond Sight Theory and Research <art_beyond_sight_theory_and_research@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 22 Jul 2009 14:25:34 +0200
Hi,
Excerpt of article about the BrainPort device. Good article.
article at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/20/AR2009072002343.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/20/AR2009072002343_pf.html
Regards,
Lisa
'Lollipop' Helps Reveal Shapes To the Blind
After Marine Cpl. Mike Jernigan was blinded by a roadside bomb in Iraq,
he said, not much was done for him.
"I returned back from Iraq and [Veterans Affairs] gave me a stick. A
stick and a tap on the butt and they said, 'Go ahead.' "
...
Also called the intra-oral device, or IOD, the lollipop is an
inch-square grid with 625 small round metal pieces. It is connected by a
wire to a small camera mounted on a pair of sunglasses and to a
hand-held controller about the size of a BlackBerry. The camera sends an
image to the lollipop, which transmits a low-voltage pulse to Jernigan's
tongue. With training, Jernigan has learned to translate that pulse into
pictures. He can now identify the shapes of what is in front of him,
even though both of his eyes have been removed.
"It's kind of like Braille that you use with your fingers," said Amy
Nau, an optometrist who is researching the effectiveness of the device
at the University of Pittsburgh. "Instead of symbols, it's a picture,
and instead of your fingertips, it's your tongue."
...
"Touch takes over for vision in this case," said Maurice Ptito, a
professor of visual science at the University of Montreal's School of
Optometry, who has scanned the brains of blind people using the machine.
"We notice that they activate the visual cortex, which is the part of
the brain that a seeing person would use."
....
Paul Bach-y-Rita, the late founder of Wicab, discovered in the late
1990s that the tongue was the ideal place to provide information through
tactile stimulation, Beckman said. "There is a high level of nerve
endings in the tongue, similar to a finger," he said. "And the tongue is
constantly moist, so there is constant electric conductivity."
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