TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, Dec. 26 (UPI) -- A video signal received from an electronic eye and converted to sound and mechanical oscillations can be used as an eyesight substitute for the blind, its Uzbek inventor told United Press International.
The hand-held device, a cylinder containing an electronic light sensor at its tip, is designed to be pointed at an object a sight-impaired person wishes to "see," explained Vladimir Matveev, a specialist in electronics.
The device then emits sounds and vibrations according to the composition of the object. For example, the pitch of the sound becomes higher if the object is light in color and lower if the object is dark. Users can become accustomed quickly to the signals from the device as it "sees" familiar objects.
"The transmitting capacities of the auditory and tactile systems are not worse than the transmitting capacities of the visual nerve," Matveev said. "The visual nerves may be atrophied and the part of the cerebral cortex processing information from these nerves may also be struck," he said, adding that different parts of the cerebral cortex are able to duplicate one another, so the sound and tactile information sent by the device can be acquired and analyzed correctly by the brain.
Matveev said test subjects who have used the device have claimed they "saw" pictures: a man leaning against a wall, the number of staircase steps or even somebody's shadow. The device has allowed blind subjects to see the Moon and the horizon, and Matveev said he believes it even could allow the blind to read.
"The device may have a visual keenness (that is better than) human beings' eyesight," he said. For example, the device is able to perceive brightness and darkness better than the human eye. It also offers good ergonomics and user-friendliness and is safe to use, Matveev said.
He said he is seeking funding to conduct full-scale clinical trials of the device.
An administrative board of Uzbekistan's Society of the Blind declared the device "an apparatus of social and professional rehabilitation of the blind -- especially blind children."
Sadyk Khasanov, the chairman of the Foundation for Rehabilitation and Help to the Blind and Weakly Seeing Children and Youth, or Panohshulasi, told UPI the device was promising but its effectiveness can be determined only after full-scale tests.
"It is good that (people) inside Uzbekistan have paid attention (to the blind)," Fatima Adylova, head of the Medical Informatics Laboratory of the Institute of Cybernetics, told UPI.
