----- Original Message ----- Hi All,
Appended is the ISP2012 symposium talk abstract of Shinsuke Shimojo of CalTech,
referring to his work with The vOICe at CalTech. ISP2012 stands for the"International Summer Program 2012: Brain and Mind: Neuroscience Up-to-date" at the International Exchange Center, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, August
27-31, 2012. Best wishes, Peter Meijer Seeing with Sound - The vOICe http://www.seeingwithsound.com/winvoice.htm Sensory substitution, crossmodal plasticity, and the third kind of "qualia" “Qualia” to some philosophers refers to the absolute, unique and subjectivequality of a conscious sensory experience, which may not be “explained away” by any sort of neurophysiological account or model. Whereas we do not endorse to the opinion that the qualia is the "hard" (i.e. impossible in principle) problem for science, we also agree that the current visual perceptual sciences failed to
explain the "absolute, unique and subjective quality of conscious sensoryexperiences." In this context, we may be able to find significant insights in
the latest progresses in sensory substitution since they raise fundamentalquestions, such as what precisely are the basic characteristics of “vision-like”
sensory processing.The “vOICe” is one of the currently available visual substitution devices based on auditory inputs, primarily for blind people. It translates video inputs (X- and Y-axes) into auditory parameters (time and pitch, respectively). There are several “super users” who claim “visual” experiences. Moreover, at least one of them showed neural activity in higher-level visual cortical areas in fMRI, when
engaged in a shape discrimination task relying on this device. In principle, we may come up with a brief list of psychophysical & neuroscientific criteria to acquire new “visual” experiences, and I will describe some data that our laboratory recently obtained along this line. The psychophysical results suggest that some aspects of perceptual constancy(such as orientation or shape) can be attained by the vOICe training in sighted
subjects, but that the post-training performance is mainly based on top-downcognitive strategy, rather than the typical, vision-like, automatic processes.
To make it more automatic and effortless, dynamic sampling, i.e. sensory feedback from self action, turned out to be critical. Our fMRI data, albeit preliminary, indicate V3 activation. All these results, as well as the vast majority of the literature on sensory substitution, have been based on the assumption that before training, theparticipants can perform the task only at the baseline chance level. It turned
out not to be true, due to some intrinsic (synesthetic) mapping acrossmodalities. Texture discrimination is the best example so far in our case with the vOICe, where untrained sighted subjects can grossly outperform the chance
level and training does not necessarily add much. Considering all these findings together, qualia, if still want to use such aword, should be understood with regard to adaptive behavior. Consequently, the
subjective sensory experience which is acquired via excessive training/experiences with the sensory substitution device is not entirely“visual,” nor “auditory.” Instead, it may be characterized best as “the third
kind of qualia.” Source URLs: http://www.tmd.ac.jp/TMDU-e/isc/isp2012/abstracts/shimojo-symposium.html http://www.tmd.ac.jp/TMDU-e/isc/isp2012/abstracts/shimojo-lecture.html ---------- To send a message to the list, send any message to blindza@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ---------- To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to blindza-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the subject line --- The 'homepage' for this list is at http://www.blindza.co.za
