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No effect of 10-week training in click-based echolocation on auditory localization in people who are blind.

ABSTRACT: What factors are important in the calibration of mental representations of auditory space? A substantial body of research investigating the audiospatial abilities of people who are blind has shown that visual experience might be an important factor for accurate performance in some audiospatial tasks. Yet, it has also been shown that long-term experience using click-based echolocation might play a similar role, with blind expert echolocators demonstrating auditory localization abilities that are superior to those of people who are blind and who do not use click-based echolocation by Vercillo et al. (Neuropsychologia 67: 35-40, 2015). Based on this hypothesis we might predict that training in click-based echolocation may lead to improvement in performance in auditory localization tasks in people who are blind. Here we investigated this hypothesis in a sample of 12 adult people who have been blind from birth. We did not find evidence for an improvement in performance in auditory localization after 10 weeks of training despite significant improvement in echolocation ability. It is possible that longer-term experience with click-based echolocation is required for effects to develop, or that other factors can explain the association between echolocation expertise and superior auditory localization. Considering the practical relevance of click-based echolocation for people who are visually impaired, future research should address these questions.

SUBMITTER: Thaler L

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8599323 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:Some blind people have developed a unique technique, called echolocation, to orient themselves in unknown environments. More specifically, by self-generating a clicking noise with the tongue, echolocators gain knowledge about the external environment by perceiving more detailed object features. It is not clear to date whether sighted individuals can also develop such an extremely useful technique. To investigate this, here we test the ability of novice sighted participants to perform a depth echolocation task. Moreover, in order to evaluate whether the type of room (anechoic or reverberant) and the type of clicking sound (with the tongue or with the hands) influences the learning of this technique, we divided the entire sample into four groups. Half of the participants produced the clicking sound with their tongue, the other half with their hands. Half of the participants performed the task in an anechoic chamber, the other half in a reverberant room. Subjects stood in front of five bars, each of a different size, and at five different distances from the subject. The dimension of the bars ensured a constant subtended angle for the five distances considered. The task was to identify the correct distance of the bar. We found that, even by the second session, the participants were able to judge the correct depth of the bar at a rate greater than chance. Improvements in both precision and accuracy were observed in all experimental sessions. More interestingly, we found significantly better performance in the reverberant room than in the anechoic chamber. The type of clicking did not modulate our results. This suggests that the echolocation technique can also be learned by sighted individuals and that room reverberation can influence this learning process. More generally, this study shows that total loss of sight is not a prerequisite for echolocation skills this suggests important potential implications on rehabilitation settings for persons with residual vision.

Dataset Information

No effect of 10-week training in click-based echolocation on auditory localization in people who are blind.

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