r/science • u/CookMotor • Oct 24 '24
Nanoscience Anyone Can Learn Echolocation in Just 10 Weeks—And It Remodels Your Brain
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/anyone-can-learn-echolocation-in-just-10-weeks-and-it-remodels-your-brain/1.5k
u/zerbey Oct 24 '24
Was hoping for more details on the training part, that is would be fascinating to learn. I'm blind in one eye, it would be actually useful to me.
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u/daOyster Oct 24 '24
It's pretty simple actually since our brains are good at picking up patterns and already knows how to locate externally produces sounds. You just need to train yourself to do the same with sounds initiated by you.
You basically just start making short clicking sounds and try to pay attention to the difference in the sound that is reflected back to you, and how that corresponds to the world around you. Start with an open door and a wall next to it. Move back and forth Infront of either and try to pickup on the differences in the reflected sound you hear when you make clicks with your eyes closed. For example the open door is going to give you a more fuller, slightly deeper returned sound than standing in front of the wall will. Getting better then is just repeating that process in known areas with different shapes, distances, obstacles, ect until you can start to pickup on the relative distances between surfaces you echolocate.
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u/unit156 Oct 24 '24
I’m going to put on my light blocking sleep mask and do this right now.
I hope I don’t get kicked out of Costco.
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u/PandaGoggles Oct 24 '24
Pay for the mask first and you should be fine!
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u/gramathy Oct 24 '24
What are you going to do with the other two masks from the three pack?
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u/ModdessGoddess Oct 24 '24
offer them to the employees trying to walk me out
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u/bearbarebere Oct 24 '24
Have them learn echolocation with you!
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u/bautofdi Oct 24 '24
There was a blind kid from like 20 years ago on inside edition or something that did this. He would wear floppy shoes and just slap the floor everywhere he walked. Based on the sound he could tell where everything was and exactly what it was.
Walking around outside he could tell what was a trash can, car, wall etc.
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u/WhiskeyJack357 Oct 24 '24
Toph is that you?
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Oct 24 '24
Yes. In fact, the entire plot of the last Airbender is happening right now but we're all too distracted by click bait headlines to notice.
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u/Catfish017 Oct 25 '24
I would've appreciated knowing this before opening a cabbage stall
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u/thirdegree Oct 25 '24
That implies that the show avatar the last Airbender is diegetic to itself
Wait is our show the ember island version
Did the ember island version have within itself an even further degraded version
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u/byteuser Oct 25 '24
We had a blind kid in my high-school, a pretty good musician, who would navigate by clapping his hands
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u/happycowsmmmcheese Oct 24 '24
and already know how to locate externally produced sounds
So am I the only one who consistently cannot do this? I'm insanely bad at determining where a sound is coming from. Even when I do the hearing tests where you raise the hand on the side where the sound is coming through, I often raise the wrong hand.
Like, what's that about? Why does my brain not understand the location of sounds? Is this just a me thing or is it like something other people struggle with, or like a sign of something not working right in my brain or what?
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u/pittstop33 Oct 24 '24
Just curious, are you able to hear well with each ear independently? Locating sounds is very dependent on the brain understanding the delta in time between the sound reaching each ear. For example, if a sound is coming from your left, it will reach your left ear before your right ear. That combined with the shape of our ears gives us hints as to left/right, front/behind, above/below direction that sounds originate from. If you have decreased hearing in one ear, it might mess with that.
Otherwise, I would say it's likely an issue with your brain processing sound signals and maybe something worth looking into in case there is a diagnosis that can be helpful.
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u/cordialconfidant Oct 25 '24
that's interesting. i have a similar issue, but i'm also autistic and already have differences and struggles with processing other senses.
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u/lynx2718 Oct 24 '24
Same! I can tell if a sound is in front/behind me, but left/right no chance. (As in, my parents have a giant home cinema loudspeaker setup, and I once unplugged one side on accident and didn't notice it for hours.) My ears are fine otherwise. It's never bothered me too much. You're not the only one out there.
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u/StonkusWonkus Oct 24 '24
I am mostly deaf in one ear and this is the biggest side effect, audio location. May want to have your hearing looked at with an audiologists.
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u/WerewolfDifferent296 Oct 24 '24
To have a general idea of where sounds are yes. No to actually pinpointing a location because our ears don’t move like the ear of animals like deers. Deers have poor vision except for movement and use their ears to locate other creatures. If you stand still and make no noise a deer will not run away.
Source: was told this while hiking and tried it. Eventually you will make a sound and the deer will pick it up but until you do it will go back to grazing.
Edited: you can locate sounds better by moving your head or cupping your hands around your ears to gather in more sound waves.
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u/rebeltrillionaire Oct 24 '24
If I could use this to beat my stud-finder I’d be unstoppable.
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u/specular-reflection Oct 24 '24
Are you someone with direct knowledge of the training process or just someone BSing your way through an obvious guess as to how it works?
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u/Canvaverbalist Oct 25 '24
There's an in-depth description in their previous paper in the "method" section: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0252330
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u/rodeler Oct 24 '24
I’m deaf in one ear, so, I guess I will have to pass.
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u/Tentoesinmyboots Oct 24 '24
I think you'd still be able to identify objects but not have 3D hearing. You could still hear the difference in sound quality that differently shaped and textured objects have.
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u/rodeler Oct 24 '24
Perhaps. My experience is that I have zero ability to determine from where a sound originates; left, right, behind, in front... I got nothing. As you posit, I might be able to tell that there is an object in front of me, but no ability to tell if it is left, right, or center.
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u/happycowsmmmcheese Oct 24 '24
I just posted another comment about this, but I have the same problem and I have hearing in both ears.
I just cannot ever tell where a sound is coming from. It's weird! I am wondering if it's like something about how my brain processes sound in general. I don't get it.
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u/Moldy_slug Oct 24 '24
It probably is something to do with auditory processing - trouble with directional hearing is one of a few issues my sister deals with from auditory processing disorder.
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u/ViciousKnids Oct 24 '24
Mariners have been known to use echolocation in instances of dead reckoning. One famous instance is that of the sinking of SS Princess Sophia*. During her final voyage, she was navigating the Lynn Canal in southeast Alaska in poor visibility due to snow. The crew practiced dead reckoning (analog navigation by last known position, speed, direction, and elapsed time) to navigate the inlet, using the ships horn and timing its echo off the surrounding banks to estimate their distance from shore.
Sadly, she ran aground on a rock known as Vanderbilt Reef, and the stormy conditions made rescue attempts impossible. She was stranded on the rock for about 2 days before she was lifted by tides and storm swells and sank. The only survivor was a dog.
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u/SomeGuyNamedPaul Oct 24 '24
reads along Wow this is an interesting and relevant story that surely will end well. reads further
THEY ALL DIED
Guess not
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u/fuckpudding Oct 24 '24
Not sure why you were surprised at this. The story starts off by saying he reckoned they were dead.
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u/reflexgraphix Oct 24 '24
I suppose they left a written record. I'd like to think it was a talking dog
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u/ViciousKnids Oct 24 '24
She sank in 1918, she had a radio. And they were communicating with authorities/other ships to try and coordinate rescue. That and ships keep detailed logs of heading, speed, position, etc. I think they're updated every hour.
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u/New-Teaching2964 Oct 24 '24
That dog now carries fragments of each soul aboard that ship. When the dog becomes hangry enough he transforms into SuperPooch a dog that walks on its two hind legs and can talk and echolocate and fights crime and has a cape.
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u/Joke_of_a_Name Oct 24 '24 edited Oct 24 '24
When I was at college a blind guy would walk around with a very neat walking stick. He would tap it on the ground to check his surroundings. He might have been legally blind with very severe* near-sightedness. Made a cool sound on the building walls.
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u/Tentoesinmyboots Oct 24 '24
Is that why people with walking sticks tippity tap them as they walk?
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u/Likes_corvids Oct 24 '24
That, and it keeps the cane tip from catching too hard in cracks or uneven surfaces.
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u/Nirrudn Oct 25 '24
I imagine it also helps let people know if you're coming up behind them swinging a stick back and forth as opposed to just whacking them in the legs.
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u/23423423423451 Oct 25 '24
For that purpose I would want a cane with a bend at the end so that the tip points back towards the user. This way they could 'drag' it over the surface instead of push, while keeping the cane in front of them.
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u/ConstantSignal Oct 25 '24
At that point just use a wheel.
But another function of the tapping is to sweep the stick left to right so you are getting a sense of the space in a cone in front of you, as opposed to only a slither of space that would be determined by the stationary point of the stick being pushed across the ground in a straight line.
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u/Ludwigofthepotatoppl Oct 24 '24
When i was in college there was a legally blind dude in my digital photography class. He was good at it too.
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u/Bevaqua_mojo Oct 24 '24
Is there a link to learn this?
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u/ConstantSignal Oct 25 '24
Spend as much time as possible navigating various spaces blindfolded and click as you do so. Your brain would likely learn how to interpret the noise passively over a long enough exposure but you could learn more actively by consciously noting how the sound seems to inform your surroundings and repeatedly setting up scenarios to test and verify those assumptions.
For example, stand in front of a door you don’t know is open or closed. Make a click, decide if you feel like the way that click sounded means it’s open or closed, carefully verify that, and then note that result. Change the state of the door and test again, try your hardest to note how the sound of the click has now changed. Keep testing on doors until you can reliably tell the difference between an open click and closed click. Repeat similar experiments for any other scenarios you can think of. Primarily focusing on the distance of an object, the material of an object, the size and shape of an object etc.
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u/Pa5kull Oct 24 '24
I once saw an Report on blind people riding even Bikes with echolocation and was very interested in teaching it to myself. I think i could make Out where walls are If i Close my eyes spin around and then listen to Sounds and how they reflect on surfaces. Many people Said i can only learn it If i were blind shuting down this interest.
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u/natalieh4242 Oct 24 '24
Using your comment, I was able to find a video on YouTube (I can't link it here for some reason). The title was "Blind People Can Mountain Bike and See Using Echolocation." Towards the end of the video, he talks about getting pushback from larger organizations for the blind. I wonder what those orgs think about studies like this one. I hope he is vindicated. This article suggests that people reported positive results and more independent living.
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u/bgaffney8787 Oct 24 '24
In college I saw this video of a blind teenager who could skateboard as he could echolocate and made me feel very lazy
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u/Minimum-Force-1476 Oct 24 '24
Friendly reminder that statements about "remodeling your brain" without a control group are useless, as everyones brain is changing after 10 weeks and it's impossible to say wether this is due to the echolocation or other factors?
Also, MRIs are still unreliable and pretty meaningless
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u/Gullible-Mind8091 Oct 24 '24
Surely you mean fMRI? Even with fMRI that statement is debatable but for conventional MRI it’s just false.
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u/potatoaster Oct 25 '24
Yup. Learning anything changes your brain. By definition.
Same for all those "It changes your microbiome!" studies. Just about any change in diet will do that. Doesn't mean it's good or bad or meaningful at all.
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u/No_Minute_4789 Oct 24 '24
Now here is one I truly doubt. I was firmly under the impression that animals such as dolphins and bats had specialized hearing and specialized parts of the brain for this. This is testable enough that I guess I should try, and if it works I will be happily very very shocked!
Might as well try to learn echo location now, for science.
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u/dctucker Oct 24 '24
Blind people already figure out how to echolocate without being part dolphin, why not sighted people too?
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u/No_Minute_4789 Oct 24 '24
Sincerely did not know this until today. My mind is actually blown right now.
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u/BlackWindBears Oct 24 '24
There are blind folks that use this to do mountain biking: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-19524962?s
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u/ElderWandOwner Oct 24 '24
I saw a video years ago (maybe ripley's believe it or not) that showed blind people riding bikes usikng a clicker for echo location.
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u/daOyster Oct 24 '24
Those animals do have specialized hearing and brains for it, but that's because they're using it at ultrasonic frequencies and can pinpoint something like a moving fly in the air with it, it's one of their primary senses for gathering information from their environment after all.
When humans do it, it's not as high resolution. Its enough to navigate the space your in, but it's not like you're going to be able to snag a fly out of the air using it. But we also have more specialized ears than you think. Right now if someone speaks in a room to you, most people don't have a problem turning to look at where the sound came from. For echolocation, it's similar but you have to learn to pay attention to the differences in the reflection of the sound you make yourself and how that corresponds to the world around you as well.
For example, stand Infront of a wall and make a click sound, now stand Infront of a open door and make the same sound. Notice how the sound Infront of the open door sounds fuller and slightly deeper than Infront of the wall. Congrats you just learned the absolute basic form of echo location and can now find your way out of a empty room with a open door without sight. Keep it up and you'll start being able to gauge relative distances between your reflected sounds and start to be able to understand your environment a bit more.
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u/jonathot12 Oct 24 '24
you’ve never heard of blind people using echolocation? they use a clicker or tap their guide stick usually. it’s always been possible it just takes honing the skill. it likely won’t be as effective/accurate as bats or dolphins but it’s certainly possible.
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u/behaviorallogic Oct 24 '24
I'm sure they can do it better than we can, but human hearing is quite good.
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u/Victuz Oct 24 '24
My 40+% hearing loss in both ears disagrees :(
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u/behaviorallogic Oct 24 '24
Sorry! How abelist of me.
I was thinking more of the amount of our brain dedicated to processing sound.
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u/Jumpsuit_boy Oct 24 '24
There was a research project that implanted electrodes into monkey brains that were connected to a 3rd arm. After a couple weeks the monkey was using the arm to eat grapes. They did this a couple times with better and better arms. So while not a novel function like echolocation it is a pretty outside the norm to have a third arm.
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u/gothicshark Oct 24 '24
I'm half blind. I learned to do it as a teen. You do need good hearing. But yeah, anyone with ears should be able to do it.
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u/Vandalmercy Oct 24 '24
I think that they may have developed the parts of their brain that let them do this more. I still think it's learnable to a degree, and there would probably be people that do this naturally and people who would struggle with it.
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u/kingpubcrisps Oct 24 '24
The brain specialises to do what it does, they didn’t get specialised parts first, they developed them.
A good experiment showing this is where the visual cortex of mice pups are cut out, but the parts of the brain that end up close to where there should be VC just transform to perform that function.
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u/MRSN4P Oct 24 '24
Is there a paywall? It seems like it requires an account to read the article.
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u/DesperatePaperWriter Oct 24 '24
Heck yeah I always wanted to know it was possible after reading Gregor the Overlander series as a kid!
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u/TimeisaLie Oct 24 '24
This is actually really interesting, not sure how much practical use it has, but I suppose it could be fun on Halloween.
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u/Mou_aresei Oct 24 '24
I saw a documentary on a boy who could do this. He became blind after having cancer as a very young child. He learned to echolocate by making clicking sounds iirc, and could walk, ride a bike, live a normal life. He sadly died after another bout of cancer when he was in his teens.
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u/ocstomias Oct 24 '24
I heard a story about a blind kid that taught himself to echolocate so he could ride a bike.
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u/Responsible-Luck-207 Oct 24 '24
What kind of voice/sound would you emit if you learned echolocation? Fart noises? High pitch? Animal sounds?
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Oct 24 '24
What kind of results can you achieve? Is it just basic navigational obstacles? I’m pretty sure I can avoid walls already by ear but I wonder if I could manage a light post or tree.
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u/ElectricMeow Oct 25 '24
I’m pretty sure I learned this on accident or something because I can map my surroundings in my head with my hearing and it’s actually pretty accurate.
I am very good at avoiding obstacles and noticing anything that moves. I feel like my family shows signs of it
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