This article is quite lengthy but fascinating! (you can use "gators" as the username and password if required by the article)
Here are a few snipits:
quote: More than 30 years ago, Dr. Bach-y-Rita developed the first sensory substitution device, routing visual images, via a head-mounted camera, to electrodes taped to the skin on people's backs. The subjects, he found, could "see" large objects and flickering candles with their backs. The tongue, sensitive and easy to reach, turned out to be an even better place to deliver substitute senses, Dr. Bach-y-Rita said.
quote: "We see with the brain, not with the eyes," Dr. Bach-y-Rita said. "You can lose your retina but you do not lose the ability to see as long as your brain is intact."
quote: Most important, the brain does not seem to care if patterns come from the eye, ear or skin. Given the proper context, it will interpret and understand them. "For me, it happened automatically, within a few minutes," said Erik Weihenmayer, who has been blind since he was 13.
quote: Ms. Schiltz, too, whose vestibular system was damaged by gentamicin, an inexpensive generic antibiotic used for Gram-negative infections, said that the first few times she used the BrainPort she felt tiny impulses on her tongue but still could not maintain her balance. But one day, after a full 20-minute session with the BrainPort, Ms. Schiltz opened her eyes and felt that something was different. She tilted her head back. The room did not move. "I went running out the door," she recalled. "I danced in the parking lot. I was completely normal. For a whole hour." Then, she said, the problem returned.
quote: Blind people who have used the device do not report lasting effects. But they are amazed by what they can see. Mr. Weihenmayer said the device at first felt like candy pop rocks on his tongue. But that sensation quickly gave way to perceptions of size, movement and recognition.
quote: In one experiment, a leprosy patient who had lost the ability to experience touch with his fingers was outfitted with a glove containing contact sensors. These were coupled to skin on his forehead. Soon he experienced the data coming from the glove on his forehead, as if the feelings originated in his fingertips. He said he cried when he could touch and feel his wife's face.
At first the idea didn't make any sense to me, but now I'm getting a better feel for it. Posts: 326 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
This is awesome. It amazes me, this and the man who can move things ( a robotic arm and a curser from a computer) by thinking about it, with no physical manipulation at all. The potential for these types of devices are limitless.
posted
WHOA! Where does she live? I had a friend of mine tell me about something EXACTLY like this the other day! This might be a friend of his family.
OOC: She's from WI and so is he, I'll ask him if this is her!!
There isn't any mention of her hometown on it, but if i had to guess I'd probably say that she's in Wisconsin, since that's where the research and experimentation is being done.
quote: But the technology for swapping sensory information is largely the effort of Dr. Paul Bach-y-Rita, a neuroscientist in the University of Wisconsin Medical School's orthopedics and rehabilitation department.
Ryuko, please let us know if you find out if this is truely your friend's friend!
Posts: 326 | Registered: Aug 2004
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See, this is what happens to me online. To those of you who think online life is not real, this is what is going on. There are real people in cyberspace and so when you interact with them it's just like real life only slightly lower bandwidth and the electromagnetic signals come into a different input port to your brain but what happens is your brain soon learns to interpret the new signals correctly and all the mechanism in between disappears. This is actually what happens with your body as well, when you are a baby. Your hands, your eyes, etc are just machines for feeding signals to your brain. What matters is the ultimate reality "out there" which is just other people plus a place with rules and laws for interacting in. In both realms you have comparable reality. The rules and laws are slightly different, and the bandwidth is lower right now for cyberspace, but otherwise it's the exact same thing!
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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"The rules and laws are slightly different, and the bandwidth is lower right now for cyberspace, but otherwise it's the exact same thing!"
I'd like to think that I receive sufficient stimulation in MeatSpace that it is not necessary for my sensory receptors to adapt to recognizing "*hug*" or "((Tom))" as replacements for actual physical contact.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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