Blind subjects construct conscious mental images of visual scenes encoded in musical form
Open accessAbstract
Blind (previously sighted) subjects are able to analyse, describe and graphically represent a number of high-contrast visual images translated into musical form de novo. We presented musical transforms of a random assortment of photographic images of objects and urban scenes to such subjects, a few of which depicted architectural and other landmarks that may be useful in navigating a route to a particular destination. Our blind subjects were able to use the sound representation to construct a conscious mental image that was revealed by their ability to depict a visual target by drawing it. We noted the similarity between the way the visual system integrates information from successive fixations to form a representation that is stable across eye movements and the way a succession of image frames (encoded in sound) which depict different portions of the image are integrated to form a seamless mental image. Finally, we discuss the profound resemblance between the way a professional musician carries out a structural analysis of a musical composition in order to relate its structure to the perception of musical form and the strategies used by our blind subjects in isolating structural features that collectively reveal the identity of visual form.
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Cronly-Dillon, Persaud and Blore (2000) found observers were able to recognize basic shapes such as buildings and cars through tonotopic representation.
“Cronly-Dillon, Persaud and Blore (2000) trained observers to recognize sounds through tonotopic representation (Väljamäe & Kleiner, 2006) finding that observers were able to recognize basic shapes such as buildings and cars.”
From Designing sensory-substitution devices: Principles, pitfalls and potential1 (2016) · cites this paper as Cronly-Dillon, Persaud and Blore (2000)
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Designing sensory-substitution devices: Principles, pitfalls and potential1
Kristjánsson, Á., Moldoveanu, A., Jóhannesson, Ó. I., Balan, O., Spagnol, S., Valgeirsdóttir, V. V., & Unnthorsson, R. (2016) · Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience · doi:10.3233/rnn-160647 · Cited by 116 · see citing works
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Klatzky, R. L., Giudice, N. A., Bennett, C. R., & Loomis, J. M. (2014) · Multisensory Research · doi:10.1163/22134808-00002447 · Cited by 74 · see citing works
How well do you see what you hear? The acuity of visual-to-auditory sensory substitution
Haigh, A., Brown, D. J., Meijer, P., & Proulx, M. J. (2013) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00330 · Cited by 72 · see citing works
Testing vision is not testing for vision
Peli, E. (2020) · Translational Vision Science & Technology · doi:10.1167/tvst.9.13.32 · Cited by 14 · see citing works
- Authors
- Cronly–Dillon, J., Persaud, K. C., & Blore, R.
- Affiliations
- Department of Optometry and Neuroscience, University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, Manchester M60 1QD, UK
- University of Manchester (GB)
- ORCID
- Persaud, K. C.
- Venue
- Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences
- Publisher
- The Royal Society
- Published
- 2000-11-07
- Volume
- 267
- Issue
- 1458
- Pages
- 2231-2238
- ISSN
- 0080-4649 (ISSN-L)
- 0962-8452
- 1471-2954
- PMC
- PMC1690801
- OpenAlex
- W2131554532
- Cited by
- 35
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2022: 1 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 1 · 2016: 2 · 2014: 5 · 2013: 3 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 0.56
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Research Explorer (The University of Manchester) (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Tactile and Sensory Interactions
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Multisensory perception and integration
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
- Keywords
- visual scene perception, eye movements, landmark detection, route navigation, musical form analysis, cross-modal perception
- MeSH terms
- Blindness, Humans, Imagination, Models, Psychological, Music, Pattern Recognition, Visual, Visual Perception
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