Department of Medical Neurobiology, Faculty of Medicine, The Institute for Medical Research Israel-Canada, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel.
PLoS One. 2012;7(3):e33136. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0033136. Epub 2012 Mar 16.
Sensory Substitution Devices (SSDs) convey visual information through sounds or touch, thus theoretically enabling a form of visual rehabilitation in the blind. However, for clinical use, these devices must provide fine-detailed visual information which was not yet shown for this or other means of visual restoration. To test the possible functional acuity conveyed by such devices, we used the Snellen acuity test conveyed through a high-resolution visual-to-auditory SSD (The vOICe). We show that congenitally fully blind adults can exceed the World Health Organization (WHO) blindness acuity threshold using SSDs, reaching the highest acuity reported yet with any visual rehabilitation approach. This demonstrates the potential capacity of SSDs as inexpensive, non-invasive visual rehabilitation aids, alone or when supplementing visual prostheses.
感觉替代设备 (SSDs) 通过声音或触觉传达视觉信息，从而在理论上为盲人提供了一种视觉康复形式。然而，对于临床应用，这些设备必须提供精细的视觉信息，而这一点尚未通过这种或其他视觉恢复手段来实现。为了测试这些设备传递的可能的功能视力，我们使用高分辨率视觉到听觉 SSD（The vOICe）传递的 Snellen 视力测试。我们表明，先天性全盲的成年人可以使用 SSD 超过世界卫生组织 (WHO) 的盲视敏度阈值，达到迄今为止任何视觉康复方法报告的最高敏度。这证明了 SSD 作为廉价、非侵入性的视觉康复辅助工具的潜力，无论是单独使用还是作为视觉假体的补充。
