3 ms·
Totally blind person here. I haven't used echolocation much in my life, except for the standard wall/door detection tricks, of course. I've met a very small num
by miki123211 7y ago
Totally blind person here. I haven't used echolocation much in my life, except for the standard wall/door detection tricks, of course. I've met a very small number of people who do it successfully, though. One guy I know is a near expert. He lost his sight like 4 years ago and he alrady learned it on a pretty advanced level. He taught us to detect things like glasses on a table and tell where they are. The class was only like 3, 4 hours though, so I guess it's just the tip of an iceberg.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- elliekelly 7y agoThe article mentions that echolocation is a way the brain adapts in some blind people but your comment seems like echolocation is at least partially learned skill. Since you’ve taken a class on it I’d be curious to know whether you got the sense it’s something most people could learn if they wanted to spend the time/effort? Or does it seem like the sort of thing that some people just seem to pick up “naturally”?
- miki123211 7y agoThe things he tried to teach us could be done by most students at least semi-reliably. I think practice helps here, but talent helps too, just like with learning to play a musical instrument. There are people for whom it comes easily, but it seems other people can be taught too. This is all anecdotal evidence, though.
- AllanHoustonSt 7y agoDoes training for something like this lean more towards perfecting technique or forcing adaptation through repetition like training a muscle?
- miki123211 7y agoWe had just one class, so I can't really tell for certain. The advice the guy gave us was to try this at home, in various situations and see what we can do.