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The question is not whether people can infer some information from their environment using sound. That is very clearly the case. As most people will know from personal experience by detecting the presence or absence of nearby walls due to the presence or absence of ambient echo.

The question is whether the claims of "expert" echo locators can be verified and whether it would be a worthwhile pursuit to standardize and teach this technique to blind and low vision persons.

I could attempt to learn this technique but I have enough vision that I'm generally not in need of it especially with the application of current compensations. I could attempt to learn it for personal verification reasons but I would then be just another anecdote and that's not really what I consider suitable evidence for validation.

It might be that reaching expert level in human echolocation requires some "musical talent" to hear the differences.

The Wikipedia article on human echolocation has some links to research groups and programs, maybe their publications have some of the information you are looking for.

I have high myopia (normal eyesight with glasses) but went through a few years where I was told my vision might be at risk, so I developed an interest in assistive tech, Braille, etc.

I found that I could orient myself “by ear” indoors - usually by snapping fingers (tongue clicks are tiring) or by passively listening for existing sounds - a washing machine, TV, open windows - that gave me a way to figure out where doorways were.

This video features an echolocation trainer and has some interesting tips - like learning to count trees as you walk past them by the “audio shadow” they create:

https://youtu.be/08smCjKWNL0

exDM69 says>"The important bit is generating sharp impulse clicks to listen to. You can make clicks with your mouth but your tongue will get tired soon. You can also try a handheld clicker like used in behavioral conditioning for dogs. I try to make a directional sound pointed left or right."

I'm surprised that, by now, there is not a "sonic flashlight" for blind people - something that emits clicks and/or other useful sounds and can be held in the hand, mounted on the head or on eyeglasses.

I puzzled over using sound to help blind people sense the environment more than 50 years ago but put it aside. Since then I have periodically encountered the same or similar solutions but very few actual implementations: I see nothing today more advanced than ideas 50 or more years old. I must sadly conclude that there is no significant economic benefit to these ideas and that indeed the blind are the children "of a lesser god":

"I found Him in the shining of the stars,

I mark'd Him in the flowering of His fields,

But in His ways with men I find Him not.

I waged His wars, and now I pass and die.

O me! for why is all around us here

As if some lesser god had made the world,

But had not force to shape it as he would,

Till the High God behold it from beyond,

And enter it, and make it beautiful?

Or else as if the world were wholly fair,

But that these eyes of men are dense and dim,

And have not power to see it as it is:

Perchance, because we see not to the close;—

For I, being simple, thought to work His will,

And have but stricken with the sword in vain;

And all whereon I lean'd in wife and friend

Is traitor to my peace, and all my realm

Reels back into the beast, and is no more.

My God, thou hast forgotten me in my death:

Nay—God my Christ—I pass but shall not die."*

from Idylls of the King: The Passing of Arthur BY ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45325/idylls-of-the-k...

> I must sadly conclude that there is no significant economic benefit to these ideas

Halfway through the movie Ray, about Ray Charles (a blind musician), I closed my eyes and watched the rest of the movie "blind" to ... try to empathize with the antagonist. It was a good theater, good sound system. The audio in the movie really helps. I remember a scene near the beginning with a cricket or grasshopper he was listening to as a child and the location of the sounds drew my eyes right to that spot on the screen.

There was a school for blind children near where I grew up and I had been to that school as a child, not because I'm blind, but for other reasons. After watching Ray, I was inspired to help the students there and developed a piece of software that blind people could use to "hear" things on the screen as they moved their mouse around.

I used it on sighted people. They could tell vaguely what was behind the blanked out screen with only sounds playing to indicate something was behind or under the mouse. "It's a tree!" they would say, when it was a cross, for example. I thought, "It works!"

So I took the software to the blind school and showed it to the administrators.

They sat back in their chairs.

"This is nice. I appreciate the effort you spent, but there's no aptitude in the students here for something like this, they couldn't learn to use this." One of them said.

I said, "Can we try? Can you give it to one of the kids with some aptitude and see if it'll help? I can make it better. I can work with them one-on-one and see if we can make it work!"

He kinda shook his head, "No... no I don't think so, but hey I've been wanting someone to help me with my website can you help me with that?"

So, there you have it.

I was so sad. So disappointed that I was shut down like that.

Brings a tear to my eyes just typing this out right now...

I guess my point is that ... who cares about economic benefit? Why is the world like that? I cared enough. I had no economic incentive. I just wanted to help people use computers better. Get access to things. Have a new way to perceive the world.

Why isn't that good enough? I had that inspiration and went out and did something to make the world better and the people in power, those in charge, shut me down.

Why on earth would he do that?

My guess: those who have a vested interest in "aiding" the blind would be damaged by something that frees the blind in any way. Most extreme case: suppose you created a "cure" for blindness. It would render all services for the blind obsolete. Don't you think the "industries for the blind" would do all they could to stop you?

It's the same reason there are maintenance drugs for such ailments as diabetes, HIV and herpes but no cures: the vested interests stand to make far, far more money with maintenance programs than with cures.