Human click-based echolocation: Effects of blindness and age, and real-life implications in a 10-week training program.

Understanding the factors that determine if a person can successfully learn a novel sensory skill is essential for understanding how the brain adapts to change, and for providing rehabilitative support for people with sensory loss. We report a training study investigating the effects of blindness an...

Descripción completa

Guardado en:

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales:	Liam J Norman, Caitlin Dodsworth, Denise Foresteire, Lore Thaler
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2021
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/63a3db64e01b4c40b3e7fb28afe0d00a
Etiquetas:	Agregar Etiqueta Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!

id	oai:doaj.org-article:63a3db64e01b4c40b3e7fb28afe0d00a
record_format	dspace
spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:63a3db64e01b4c40b3e7fb28afe0d00a2021-12-02T20:05:21ZHuman click-based echolocation: Effects of blindness and age, and real-life implications in a 10-week training program.1932-620310.1371/journal.pone.0252330https://doaj.org/article/63a3db64e01b4c40b3e7fb28afe0d00a2021-01-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0252330https://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203Understanding the factors that determine if a person can successfully learn a novel sensory skill is essential for understanding how the brain adapts to change, and for providing rehabilitative support for people with sensory loss. We report a training study investigating the effects of blindness and age on the learning of a complex auditory skill: click-based echolocation. Blind and sighted participants of various ages (21-79 yrs; median blind: 45 yrs; median sighted: 26 yrs) trained in 20 sessions over the course of 10 weeks in various practical and virtual navigation tasks. Blind participants also took part in a 3-month follow up survey assessing the effects of the training on their daily life. We found that both sighted and blind people improved considerably on all measures, and in some cases performed comparatively to expert echolocators at the end of training. Somewhat surprisingly, sighted people performed better than those who were blind in some cases, although our analyses suggest that this might be better explained by the younger age (or superior binaural hearing) of the sighted group. Importantly, however, neither age nor blindness was a limiting factor in participants' rate of learning (i.e. their difference in performance from the first to the final session) or in their ability to apply their echolocation skills to novel, untrained tasks. Furthermore, in the follow up survey, all participants who were blind reported improved mobility, and 83% reported better independence and wellbeing. Overall, our results suggest that the ability to learn click-based echolocation is not strongly limited by age or level of vision. This has positive implications for the rehabilitation of people with vision loss or in the early stages of progressive vision loss.Liam J NormanCaitlin DodsworthDenise ForesteireLore ThalerPublic Library of Science (PLoS)articleMedicineRScienceQENPLoS ONE, Vol 16, Iss 6, p e0252330 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Liam J Norman Caitlin Dodsworth Denise Foresteire Lore Thaler Human click-based echolocation: Effects of blindness and age, and real-life implications in a 10-week training program.
description	Understanding the factors that determine if a person can successfully learn a novel sensory skill is essential for understanding how the brain adapts to change, and for providing rehabilitative support for people with sensory loss. We report a training study investigating the effects of blindness and age on the learning of a complex auditory skill: click-based echolocation. Blind and sighted participants of various ages (21-79 yrs; median blind: 45 yrs; median sighted: 26 yrs) trained in 20 sessions over the course of 10 weeks in various practical and virtual navigation tasks. Blind participants also took part in a 3-month follow up survey assessing the effects of the training on their daily life. We found that both sighted and blind people improved considerably on all measures, and in some cases performed comparatively to expert echolocators at the end of training. Somewhat surprisingly, sighted people performed better than those who were blind in some cases, although our analyses suggest that this might be better explained by the younger age (or superior binaural hearing) of the sighted group. Importantly, however, neither age nor blindness was a limiting factor in participants' rate of learning (i.e. their difference in performance from the first to the final session) or in their ability to apply their echolocation skills to novel, untrained tasks. Furthermore, in the follow up survey, all participants who were blind reported improved mobility, and 83% reported better independence and wellbeing. Overall, our results suggest that the ability to learn click-based echolocation is not strongly limited by age or level of vision. This has positive implications for the rehabilitation of people with vision loss or in the early stages of progressive vision loss.
format	article
author	Liam J Norman Caitlin Dodsworth Denise Foresteire Lore Thaler
author_facet	Liam J Norman Caitlin Dodsworth Denise Foresteire Lore Thaler
author_sort	Liam J Norman
title	Human click-based echolocation: Effects of blindness and age, and real-life implications in a 10-week training program.
title_short	Human click-based echolocation: Effects of blindness and age, and real-life implications in a 10-week training program.
title_full	Human click-based echolocation: Effects of blindness and age, and real-life implications in a 10-week training program.
title_fullStr	Human click-based echolocation: Effects of blindness and age, and real-life implications in a 10-week training program.
title_full_unstemmed	Human click-based echolocation: Effects of blindness and age, and real-life implications in a 10-week training program.
title_sort	human click-based echolocation: effects of blindness and age, and real-life implications in a 10-week training program.
publisher	Public Library of Science (PLoS)
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/63a3db64e01b4c40b3e7fb28afe0d00a
work_keys_str_mv	AT liamjnorman humanclickbasedecholocationeffectsofblindnessandageandreallifeimplicationsina10weektrainingprogram AT caitlindodsworth humanclickbasedecholocationeffectsofblindnessandageandreallifeimplicationsina10weektrainingprogram AT deniseforesteire humanclickbasedecholocationeffectsofblindnessandageandreallifeimplicationsina10weektrainingprogram AT lorethaler humanclickbasedecholocationeffectsofblindnessandageandreallifeimplicationsina10weektrainingprogram
_version_	1718375486339416064

Human click-based echolocation: Effects of blindness and age, and real-life implications in a 10-week training program.

Ejemplares similares