Visual sound system research unveiled

A device that substitutes sounds for visual images may, with training, be a useful way of enabling people with sight loss to perceive their surroundings.

Sensory substitution devices have been researched for many years and systems replacing visual stimuli with tactile or auditory stimuli have been of some benefit.

A new device, the vOICe sensory stimulation device, encodes images taken by a camera worn by the user into auditory ‘soundscape’, associating height to pitch and brightness with loudness in a left-to-right scan of any video frame. Views are refreshed about once per second, with a typical image resolution of up to 60x60 pixels.