Category: Daily Living
What do you think about using echolocation instead of using your cane. I think that it’s fake and doesn’t work but maybe I’m wrong. If you don’t know what Echolocation is, it’s clicking your tongue to get around instead of using a cane. Here some videos on it from youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uobuBc2GO0o
I have met the guy who pioneered and teaches this technique. At no point does he advocate not usinga cane. In fact, he strongly insists that anyone using the sonar technique has a mobility aid at all times. Might be worth doing a bit more research on this.
I just use my cane to produce my audible feedback. So I get to use both, and don't have to answer the constant question of "why do you click your tongue". Also, audible feedback doesn't work for everything, so it would be dangerous not to use your cane as well. The only time I click my tongue is if I get disoriented without my cane, at which point I'll click my tongue to get somewhere familiar. Still, I would only do this if no one else was around. Otherwise, I'd just ask someone where I was, and for directions on how to get back. Of course, the likelyhood of being stuck somewhere in public without my cane is not likely at all.
I'm not sure I like the notion of someone supposedly "pioneering" something that a lot of blind children use without even thinking. I'm sure there are more refined techniques which can be used, but having been a clicker as a child I can tell you that there's a ton of feedback you can get simply by reading the echoes your little noises make. I could gauge depth, distance, angle, slope, hardness of surfaces, some qualities of flooring and moving objects using nothing more than echoes, and I still can. The only difference between then and now is that now I will use more unobtrusive sounds to determine these things, alongside the occasional click which I try my best to keep quiet because I was taught not to do it. I definitely agree that you should never use this sort of echolocation exclusively in your travels, particularly outdoors where echo is much less viable in noisy environments; however, if you're in a room or travelling in a reasonably uncrowded indoor area of some kind, clicking can often greatly enhance your understanding of your surroundings, so in nonhazardous situations I feel it can be used to great effect without requiring a cane.
I think there may be social drawbacks to such odd or unusual behavior, and it would not work well for people in conversation. However, every new technique that gives you necessary informtion is worth looking into. If one can be trained at this with relative ease it might certainly be something to add to one's arsenal of navigation techniques.
I, for instance, cannot ever see myself interested in having a guide dog, but I understand they provide advantages of cane users and many peoiple love animals so this is a perfect fit for them.
As long as techniques like echolocation do not take funding and attention from other things such as inmproved gps navigation, I am happy to explore them and would gladly attend a 2-day course on how to use it, or have it incorporated into some larger o&m techninques camp.
B, I'm with you on this one. I would enver go anywhere in public without my cane, either.
I was never taught the clicking technique as such as a child, but was taught to understand the feedback given by my cane taps to judge openings, buildings, surfaces and whatnot. Lately I've taken to snapping my fingers to gage certain things, especially in shopping malls when I can snap my fingers to the beat of music. It doesn't make me look weird (I hope?) and still gives me good information.
Kate
I wasn't ever taught any sort of technique either, which is precisely my point. I'm sure there are more refined uses of clicking but I get more than enough without ever having been taught a thing about it. As I say, I was even discouraged from using it, so now I mostly try and keep myself quiet; I'll tap a foot, shuffle something in my pocket, strike my cane-tip a little harder than usual against one surface or another to get the information I want. It's not information I need, but it's definitely handy to have if you want a more detailed idea of the environment through which you are moving. Echolocation is only socially awkward if you let it be that way.
Yeah. I definitely agree with the previous poster.
Good point about finger snapping. I find that tongue clicking is awkward, whereas you can produce a tapping noise in a much more unobtrusive manner, I use finger snapping usually (although it took me a while to master that).
Echolocation still does not give you any "new" or "sighted" information about yor surroundings. What I love about GPS technology is to set your GPS device in "look around" mode and be able to randomly find a cafe or restaurant or discover a store as I walk by it.
That experience seems as close to being sighted as we have ever come, as blind pedestrians.
I feel I can walk ways I have learnt or memorized easily, with or without echo location, but echolocation will not allow me to explore new things or new routes by itself, however gps technology allows for such "adventures".
Being a spontaneous person this opens up a whole new range of possibilities (or, admittedly, would do so if I had many chances to walk in an urban area by myself, I live in a subdivission quite on the outskirts of town, nevertheless I have tried this technology and find it fascinating).
I use a kind of intuitive echo location as a part of regular cane travel. 'sound shadows' are often more useful than echoes.
I agree with the last poster.
I definitely agree that a GPS unit, if properly utilized, tells us much more useful information than echolocation would. However, I'd like to point out that echolocation can and does, if properly used, give environmental cues about what may be experienced. Examples include obstacles such as trees or tree branches, ascending stairways (descending stairways are also possible but much harder, particularly outdoors), overhangs/awnings which might mark entrances or exits on the outside of a building, and proximity to large objects which will never be touched but which give a reliable sound echo. You don't use this skill on its own, you use it in conjunction with whichever method of travel suits you best at the time. In my own experience, which is admittedly fairly limited, I find that cane users tend to care more about this sort of thing than dog users do, since the dog can (to more of an extent than the cane at least) sort of go on autopilot and thus reduce the absolute necessity of environmental reliance; this is one of my main reasons for never getting a guide dog...I'll be able to get around much better if I'm constantly being forced to evaluate my own situation instead of coasting as I might be tempted to do with a dog.
'sound shadows'?
I guess that's more akin to what I use. Basically the depth / 3D effects produced by my surroundings. I'll pop my cane in a big parking lot to make sound bounce back at me from a distant door but that's about it. Generally sounds make themselves.
There is physics for that, no matter how my instructors as a boy punished or claimed it wasn't real. The hell? Birds do it when they fly. While migrating, they usually migrate at night and besides calling to one another use the sound that's surrounding them to locate where they are. Man in real life you just never talk about this stuff but yup, I use it. As I said, the physics of sounds making themselves happen, even if you're standing still, is real no matter what instructors or agency tomfools may say. Then again, aren't they in the soft sciences? Ah yes, no surprise then, since that basically doesn't really consist of sets / variables / real units of measure, so they can say whatever I guess.
I'd say snapping, tapping or whatever, is more for targeting an object, so you know where it landed. Think about when you drop something, wait for it to stop moving, then you know within inches where it landed because the sound bounces back to you. Oh, that's not real either? 'scuse the living fuck outa me! Submarine sonar operators did it in World War II, but if you're in the social sciences, perhaps dates and timelines, combined with the anatomy / mechanics of sonar pinging devices wouldn't matter ... because you may not want it to matter ...
Seriously though, I've met blind people who didn't have what I have, and if agency weenies were anything greater than useless they'd employ a bit of hard science to it, combine the real physics of sound and however we process it naturally, and put it in their programs to assist those that don't have it, cause it's the bomb for 3D representation of space, like sight only slower, colorless, and lacking the precise definition.
Maybe they haven't but said that they did: now that would be in line with religion / philosophy / sociology types.
I did go on youtube and checked out more videos and did noticed that Oprah, and Montell, did give wrong information when I watched a show that had a boy, Ben just get around with echolocation. Yes he did it but I did watch a video where Daniel the inventor was trying to convince him to use both echolocation and a cane because that's the proper way. Now that makes much more cense.
yes, what Dan taught...or tried to teach Ben, is the technique I use.
I'm assuming that's what the person who refered to it as sound shadows meant.
I don't even think this sort of thing really needs teaching though...no more than using your eyes needs teaching. A little refinement if you've really been dissuaded, perhaps, but beyond that I've never fully understood how people make it into a technique. I have no doubt that Kish is creative, knowledgeable and a genius to some extent...but why this needs teaching is a thing I'm not sure I'll ever really understand.
Agreed, I dont' think it needs teaching, either. I learned to use what I have always called echo location, what some are calling sound shadows, etc, with no formal teaching whatsoever. It was something I just naturally picked up, and used. It's not something unique to those born blind either, though I'm guessing they are the ones who pick it up most naturally. but even a friend of mine who was blinded later in life began using it on her own, with no formal teaching about it.
I have never really clicked my tongue for this purpose, though. I can get the info I need based on the taps of my cane, sometimes my own footsteps, and sometimes the occasional snap of my fingers. I personally think walking around clicking one's tongue would make them appear very socially awkward, especially given that the same information can be obtained in a far less conspicuous way.
I'm not at all surprised to learn that the media portrayed this whole thing incorrectly. Rarely does the media get stories involving blindness, or most disabilities, right. I'm sure that to the media, getting around with tongue clicks does seem far more miraculous, and maybe even normal, than using the very visible white cane.
Sound shadowing and echo location are not the same thing. Sound shadows are the ambiant signature caused from a large object, they are simply the sound around you reflecting off. Its like if you take a book, and sing while moving the book closer, than farther away from your face, the sound will change. That same principle can be used to find walls, trees, people, things like that. Echo location is specifically using the echo of one specific sound that you make, to find an object. I'v enver found it all that impressive though, anyone could do it, and its very limited.
Oh, and about coasting with a guide dog. It isn't like you can tell a guide dog, "Go to wlamart" and they open the door and walk you down the sidewalk to walmart, it takes as much concentration as the cane does, just in different ways.
I was never taught to tap my cane to help me figure out where things were; it wasn't till I went to an NFB training center that I was shown that.
Thanks for the clarification, Cody. I use both.
Coasting in this context wasn't meant to imply a total shut-off of your awareness. I know you can't utterly trust the dog to do everything and that you still need to know where you're going; I'm only saying that the dog lessens your dependency upon other environmental stimuli if it's doing its job properly.
To those whoSome do need to be trained in these things, as they are unaware of the possibilities. f it's possible to refine my sonic technique, I'd like to know. On a related topic, has anyone learned to use any of the electronic sonar-type devices? Do the devices enhance, or degrade your natural sonic abilities? In my school days, the O&M people were not impressed.
The first sentence of post 5 sums up my view. How weird, somebody walking around clicking their tongue. I'd avoid that person.
To SilverLightning
Must echolocation always imply the user emit a sound somehow, or is it more just the concept of targeting rather than spacial awareness?
Here's what I mean:
I may walk into a room and due to the ambient sound note the size, shape and dimensions of the room. I take it that is akin to sound shadowing.
However, if I simply focus in on a particular effect, the sound bouncing off a distant wall across a parking lot for example, I'm basically targeting, even though I'm not making a noise, because something else is.
I don't know when or where I began using the occasional pop of the cane in a wide open space to target an object's location.
But for those who are trying to learn it, I would say separate the two concepts: the 3D effect you get from walking under a scaffolding, next to a wall, or past an open doorway, from the stream / monodimensional effect you get when targeting something.
Take something that will move when it lands, maybe a baseball or something heavier that makes noise when it lands, then drop it in an open space. Don't dumpster dive right after it, no matter the temptation to try and get it: just watch and wait for it to stop, listen to the sound of its movement. There, now you're ready for the kill, you can estimate the distance between you and it. Don't do it on thick carpet right away though, that's too subtle.
I agree if all you had was targeting, or if they call that part echolocation, that would be one-dimensional, inefficient and slow. Not to be underestimated, though, because it's most useful when something lands and you want to get it.
If we could get airborne somehow, I've always wondered how well we could do using what I thought was one thing, but apparently is two separate components: the sound shadows thing and the echo locating.
Not very practical for a solid-boned not-very-streamlined creature like a human, however interesting the thought.
I agree with everything that sisterDawn said and I do the same thing with the cane but I just never knew it was echolocation. I would never click my tongue. That seems weird to me and I don't want to draw attention to myself. Although I do wonder if the tongue clicking would come in handy and work if you were sparring and by hearing the clicking of the tongue if you could figure out faster where your opponent was. I'll have to try that one day. Oh and Silver Lightning I totally started laughing when I read "It isn't like you can tell a guide dog, "Go to wlamart" and they open the door and walk you down the sidewalk to walmart" Some of the sighted do believe that guide dogs do that.
I definitely used it when I was growing up. I could click my tongue and figure out how far away a building was, especially if it was a brick building. I was at a school for the blind, so I didn't think it was so weird at the time, since a lot of other people did it. My hearing isn't good enough anymore to allow me to use this technique with enough accuracy to matter. If I can get buy without it, then fine, but it's nice to know that I know how to use it if I should ever need it.
Clicking the tongue may appear a bit weird to some people, but I know people who have only recently gone totally blind who use the sounds of their canes to pick up say vehicles or walls etc. I don't use echolocation because I've not really had the need to, but interesting topic. I did used to have an ultracane a couple of years ago, but got rid of it because I was so used to using a normal cane and just couldn't get on with it.
If clicking your tongue is the best way to get the kind of sound you want for echo location, then do it, and, to Hell with what others think of it! You draw attention to yourself, simply by being present; the blind person is part of a very small minority. If I ever come across that person who uses "their" in the singular, I shall avoid him like the pox he and his ilk are; LOL!!
sound-shadowing and guide dogs.
Hello everyone :)
I use both sound shadows and echo location when walking with my guide dog. sometimes i don't think about it .. but i use it to controll wether my dog has passed a road to a house or anything like that.
I also listen to the shound shadows when using a cane. with the echo location i might snap my fingers to listen to the sound ofbuildings around me since a clicking noise can reflect even more distant things.
. I determin the sounds around me when i give the dog a command. there i pay attention to the reflection of my voice.
I am now exploring more of what i can do .. both with a dog, and with my cane.. and not to forget, with my sound location (regardless of which one it is)
- Ranveig -
I've been aware of this little capability since I was very small. I remember walking around clicking before I had a cane. I was discouraged from using this technique growing up and told that the cane was safer and more effective. I know a guy who walks around clicking and he still runs in to people, cane and all. Lol...and to me, it just sounds kind of obnoxious and falls right in there with head waving and eye poking, it just makes you look "blind." To each his own.
Don't forget that you can listen to your environmental sounds for cues as well; dogs barking, hammering, ETC. It certainly doesn't replace the cane, but it can help.
yeah, I do that as well.
When I was little I used to use echo location by clapping my hands to find the house when in our yard. I was also told to listen for the end of a building line to know when to turn etc by my O&M instructor, so obviously not all instructors are apposed to it. I have a friend who does the clicking thing, but he doesn't always use it, only sometimes. I also use it with my guide dog by my voice when I give a command or praise as well as my footsteps to get feedback.