École d'Optométrie, Université de Montréal, Québec, Canada.
Institute of Neuroscience, Université Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium.
PLoS One. 2021 Feb 26;16(2):e0247448. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0247448. eCollection 2021.
Blind individuals often report difficulties to navigate and to detect objects placed outside their peri-personal space. Although classical sensory substitution devices could be helpful in this respect, these devices often give a complex signal which requires intensive training to analyze. New devices that provide a less complex output signal are therefore needed. Here, we evaluate a smartphone-based sensory substitution device that offers navigation guidance based on strictly spatial cues in the form of horizontally spatialized sounds. The system uses multiple sensors to either detect obstacles at a distance directly in front of the user or to create a 3D map of the environment (detection and avoidance mode, respectively), and informs the user with auditory feedback. We tested 12 early blind, 11 late blind and 24 blindfolded-sighted participants for their ability to detect obstacles and to navigate in an obstacle course. The three groups did not differ in the number of objects detected and avoided. However, early blind and late blind participants were faster than their sighted counterparts to navigate through the obstacle course. These results are consistent with previous research on sensory substitution showing that vision can be replaced by other senses to improve performance in a wide variety of tasks in blind individuals. This study offers new evidence that sensory substitution devices based on horizontally spatialized sounds can be used as a navigation tool with a minimal amount of training.
盲人在导航和探测自身周围空间以外的物体时常常会遇到困难。尽管经典的感觉替代设备在这方面可能会有所帮助，但这些设备通常会提供一个复杂的信号，需要进行密集的训练才能进行分析。因此，需要新的提供较少复杂输出信号的设备。在这里，我们评估了一种基于智能手机的感觉替代设备，该设备提供基于严格空间线索的导航指导，以水平空间化的声音形式呈现。该系统使用多个传感器来直接检测用户前方的障碍物，或者创建环境的 3D 地图（分别为检测和避免模式），并通过听觉反馈告知用户。我们测试了 12 名先天盲人、11 名后天盲人以及 24 名蒙住眼睛的视力正常者，以评估他们检测障碍物和在障碍物赛道上导航的能力。这三组人检测和避免的物体数量没有差异。然而，先天盲人组和后天盲人组比视力正常组更快地通过了障碍物赛道。这些结果与先前关于感觉替代的研究一致，该研究表明，其他感觉可以替代视觉，以提高盲人在各种任务中的表现。这项研究提供了新的证据，表明基于水平空间化声音的感觉替代设备可以作为一种导航工具，只需进行最少的培训。
