Seeing with the tongue

[nutronjon]

What is vision? is seeing with the tongue vision? The Public Broadcasting Station has aired a show about blind people being able to see by using a devise that enables them to see with their tongue.

The Seeing Tongue: Science News Online, Sept. 1, 2001
The Seeing Tongue
In-the-mouth electrodes give blind people a feel for vision
Peter Weiss

Blind since birth, Marie-Laure Martin had always thought that candle flames were big balls of fire. The 39-year-old woman couldn't see the flames themselves, but she could sense the candle's aura of heat.


At the end of a flexible cable pressed against the tongue, an array of dotlike metal electrodes (below) stimulates touch-sensitive nerves with electric pulses. Patterns of pulses represent images from a video camera (not shown).
J. Miller


Last October, she saw a candle flame for the first time. She was stunned by how small it actually was and how it danced. There's a second marvel here: She saw it all with her tongue.

The tongue, an organ of taste and touch, may seem like an unlikely substitute for the eyes. After all, it's usually hidden inside the mouth, insensitive to light, and not connected to optic nerves. However, a growing body of research indicates that the tongue may in fact be the second-best place on the body for receiving visual information from the world and transmitting it to the brain.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin*Madison are developing this tongue-stimulating system, which translates images detected by a camera into a pattern of electric pulses that trigger touch receptors. The scientists say that volunteers testing the prototype soon lose awareness of on-the-tongue sensations. They then perceive the stimulation as shapes and features in space. Their tongue becomes a surrogate eye.

[Michaelangelica]

the body language could get you into trouble
Wandering around with your tomgue poking out!

[GAHD]

Those interested in more information may find these links useful:
Kurt Kaczmarek Is the leading man on this research.

Wicab, Inc. Seems to be the commercial end of this business.

The University of Wisconsin Center for Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology has a small video on the matter. The 1991 & 1995 research papers can be accessed here.

Unfortunately I can't seem to find anything newer than that, anyone else?

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by GAHD

...Unfortunately I can't seem to find anything newer than that, anyone else?

I saw the same program that NewTronJohn did, and my impression was that it, that is the progress reported, is the latest/newest state of the technology.

Besides stimulators for the tongue, other researchers have used pins pressing on the back to demonstrate the same 'seeing' effect. The really paramount emergent feature of this area of examination however, is that these artificial stimuli actually over time start getting processed in the optical cortex! For all practical purposes, the subjects are really 'seeing'.