If
you’re near a window take a quick look out of it. If you’re in your bedroom,
glance at your closet. If you’re in the kitchen, open up the fridge. Just take
a minute to appreciate the life and vibrancy that color adds to our world. Now
imagine that you can’t see any of it; an orange is just slightly darker grey
than a banana and the leaves of a tree are the same dusty grey as the flowers
that bloom on its branches. This is how Neil Harbisson experiences our
brilliant world of color – in grayscale. Neil has complete achromatopsia, or
total color blindness. Although this is tragic news, it is not the end of the story.
When
he was 21 Neil became a part of a project along with Adam Montandon (an expert
in Digital Futures according to his website) that would allow Neil to
experience color for the first time. You might think the solution would involve
some sort of operation or eye transplant, but their idea was much more innovative.
They developed the Eyeborg—a sort of third eye that detects color and coverts it
to sound waves which are transmitted to Neil’s inner ear via bone conduction. So
technically that means that Neil can hear
colors.
Neil
Harbisson’s experience of color depends on the transduction of light energy
into sound energy. The key to the way this works is in the wave properties of
light and sound. We have all probably talked about “light waves” and “sound
waves,” but have you ever considered that they are kind of the same thing?
The
regions between the dotted lines represent one period of each wave, and the
length of this period is called the wavelength. The wave on the right has a
longer wavelength than the one on the left, and hence our eyes see them as
different colors. So the camera of Neil’s Eyeborg detects the different wavelengths
of light that it “sees,” but how does that get translated into sound??
To
answer this question we should think a little bit about sound waves and how our
ears work. Just like the wavelength of a light wave corresponds to our
perception of a specific color, the wavelength of a sound wave corresponds to
our perception of a different audible pitch. In brief, this is because sound waves
that enter our ears cause all kinds of tiny structures of our inner ears to
vibrate with a frequency that is related to the wavelength of the wave entering
the ear.
So,
if we put all of that together, Neil’s Eyeborg detects wavelengths of light, a
computer program converts those wavelengths to corresponding frequencies of
vibrations, those vibrations are passed to Neil’s inner ear via bone conduction
where each individual frequency results in his perception of a tone of different
pitch. To me, the
most amazing thing about this technology is that it utilizes Neil’s intact
sense of hearing to enhance his impaired sense of vision. Although it’s probably
not quite the same as having a functional visual system I think Neil would tell
you it is the next best thing.
To
see just how Neil’s Eyeborg works and all that he can do with it check out this TED talk by
Neil himself. It’s only 10 minutes long and I guarantee it will be worth it:
Sources
and Further Reading:
Harbisson,
N. (2012, July). Neil Harbisson: I Listen to Color [video file] retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/neil_harbisson_i_listen_to_color.html
Montandon,
A. (2010). Projects: Colourblind Eyeborg Colours to Sound retrieved from http://www.adammontandon.com/neil-harbisson-the-cyborg/
I enjoyed Neil's description of his Eyeborg! And in thinking about it, one realizes how great a role memory plays in our color sense.
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Right now we are enjoying blue jacaranda blossoms. Amazing how much more intense the blue seems when the sun is NOT shining!
I'm glad you enjoyed his story too! Indeed, his talk made me think about how easy it is to take each of our senses for granted. But you're right, the loss is even greater when you think about how our senses work with one another to enhance our perception of the world. Isn't it cool that although Neil started by attributing sounds to colors, after a while he also began attributing colors to everyday sounds?
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