Seeingwithsound
is an Internet based project that aims to provide synthetic vision
to the totally blind by means of a non-invasive visual prosthesis. Also known as
The vOICe vision technology for the totally blind, it uses an auditory display
to present live camera views through image-to-sound renderings. The ultimate
goal is to provide synthetic vision with truly visual sensations by exploiting
the neural plasticity of the human brain. Neuroscience research has shown that
the visual cortex of even adult blind people can become responsive to sound,
and seeingwithsound might reinforce this in a visual sense with live video from
a head-mounted camera encoded in sound. The extent to which cortical plasticity
indeed allows for functionally relevant rewiring or remapping of the human brain
is still largely unknown and is being investigated in an open collaboration
with research partners around the world. Seeingwithsound is one of several
approaches towards sensory substitution (vision substitution) for the blind.
Other approaches for instance aim to use the tactile sense, such as with the
tongue display.
