Researchers in “PLOS Onepublished a paper presenting their findings. The researchers conducted the experiment with 12 participants, all of whom were diagnosed with legal blindness at a young age. They also included 14 people with no problems with vision in the experiment. They then taught the participants how to use echolocation over the course of 20 sessions.
The researchers said each training session was about two to three hours long. As a result of the teaching, all blind and sighted participants learned to echolocation and showed large improvements in click-based echolocation, the researchers said.
They spent 10 weeks teaching participants to navigate virtual mazes, all of which had T-junctions, U-turns, and even zigzags. At the end of the experiment, in the last two sessions, all participants showed greater ability to navigate mazes using echolocation, even in mazes they had not navigated before.
In addition, the researchers found that the group’s participants performed on par with those who had been using echolocation for years. Thus, humans seem to be able to master this skill effectively, even for a short period of time.
What makes learning echolocation so tempting? First, researchers have seen its effectiveness in the animal world. Bats, dolphins, whales, and some other creatures, such as seals, all rely on echolocation to navigate the world in different ways. And, if this skill can be imparted to humans in a short period of time, it could become a new way for people with disabilities to get around.
Even excluding those diagnosed with legal blindness at a young age, echolocation can be of great help to humans. Our vision is just one of the senses that begin to dull as we age. Navigating the world around us can become more difficult as we age. However, if people learn how to use echolocation, the loss of vision may not feel a reduction in their basic navigation skills.
Researchers have tested the feasibility of click-based echolocation in the past. However, this is the first time that blind people and people of different ages have been included in the experiment. Now that we know that both blind and sighted people can learn echolocation, perhaps we can find new ways to help visually impaired people get around more easily.
