----- Original Message ----- Hi All,
For your information. Appended is yesterday's NPR article about Daniel Kish and echolocation. The MP3 file of the interview is at the direct URL http://public.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/atc/2011/03/20110313_atc_05.mp3?orgId=1&topicId=1129&dl=1&_kip_ipx=2144236605-1300106094 Best wishes, Peter Meijer Seeing with Sound - The vOICe http://www.seeingwithsound.com/winvoice.htm Blindness no obstacle to those with sharp ears. March 13, 2011.Meet Daniel Kish. He's a man of many talents. He likes to hike, make music and
write. He enjoys children and loves nature. He's an avid biker. He's also completely blind. How can Kish bike if he can't see? The method is called echolocation — Kish calls it "flash sonar." As he speeds along on his bike, he makes clickingsounds. As the clicks bounce back to him, he creates a mental image of the space
around him. He's kind of like a human bat. "It is literally a process of seeing with sound," he says.To demonstrate, Kish clicks and "hears" a building to his right. "When I walk
into a new area, the first thing I do is I take stock of the most prominent features," he says. "So in this particular area, the three most prominentfeatures would be that building, the umbrella in the middle of this table, and
the tree behind me."Noting the differences in the aural reflections from the buildings around him,
Kish can tell what angles they're standing at and even a few features, like balconies or columns."Those are the kinds of patterns that catch my attention," he says. "Those are the kinds of patterns of reflections that give richness to the images that are
possible from sonar."Kish has been clicking to find his way around as far back as he can remember.
Through his nonprofit foundation, World Access For the Blind, he helps blind children to explore their world through echolocation."It's the overall process of being willing to reach out into the environment and discover what is around them," he says. He encourages parents to get out of the way — their natural instinct might be to protect their child from harm — even if
it means they might get hurt."When a sighted child gets hurt we consider it to be unfortunate," Kish says.
"When a blind child gets hurt, we consider it to be tragic." It's a double standard that disadvantages a blind child, he says.But ultimately, Kish's work isn't just about teaching echolocation or learning spatial awareness. It's about a philosophy, he says — a "no-limits philosophy,
which challenges us to challenge what we think we know," he says."To challenge every boundary, every box, every limitation that we've either put
up ourselves or allow ourselves to be conditioned to accept." Source URL: http://www.npr.org/2011/03/13/134425825/human-echolocation-using-sound-to-see ---------- 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
