It's Okay To Be Smart

How Blind People See With Sound - References

Watch the video here

I met Molly Burke a few months ago. She’s awesome. I absolutely love what she’s done on YouTube to bring awareness to living with disability, and turning it into ability. And her guide dog Gallop is awesome too! When Molly and I first met, we started talking about how she navigates the world, because I’m a nerd and I always steer the conversation toward science. I was not prepared for what she told me. She said she uses echolocation! Molly’s brain has adapted to listen to sounds in her environment in ways that most of us sighted people can’t even imagine. I went to meet her in LA and brought a special surprise guest, so we could see if my brain could learn to do what she does.

Special Thanks To:

• Molly Burke
• Daniel Kish and Brian Bushway from Visioneers.org
• YouTube Space LA

Sources:

• Tonelli, Alessia, Claudio Campus, and Luca Brayda. "How body motion influences echolocation while walking." Scientific reports 8.1 (2018): 15704. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-34074-7
• Flanagin, Virginia L., et al. "Human exploration of enclosed spaces through echolocation." Journal of Neuroscience 37.6 (2017): https://www.jneurosci.org/content/37/6/1614
• Thaler, Lore, Rosanna C. Wilson, and Bethany K. Gee. "Correlation between vividness of visual imagery and echolocation ability in sighted, echo-naïve people." Experimental brain research 232.6 (2014): 1915-1925 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24584899?dopt=Abstract
• Thaler, Lore, Stephen R. Arnott, and Melvyn A. Goodale. "Neural correlates of natural human echolocation in early and late blind echolocation experts." PLoS one 6.5 (2011): e20162. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0020162
• Rojas, Juan Antonio Martínez, et al. "Physical analysis of several organic signals for human echolocation: oral vacuum pulses." Acta acustica united with acustica 95.2 (2009): 325-330. https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/dav/aaua/2009/00000095/00000002/art00013%3bjsessionid=22n2u0km0n1qr.x-ic-live-03
• Acoustical Society of America
• Dr. Mel Goodale, The Brain and Mind Institute
• Dr. Bo Schenkman, KTH Royal Institute of Technology