Humans can use sound to estimate sizes of enclosed spaces
ScienceDaily writes about fascinating research in echolocation in “Echolocation: Sizing up spaces by ear.” The article tells us about research conducted at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU), and led by Lutz Wiegrebe, a professor in the Department of Biology at LMU, that has shown that sighted people can be taught to estimate room size with the help of self-generated clicks. The research also found differences in how reflected sound affected the visual cortex of sighted versus blind participants. Namely, with a “congenitally blind participant…reception of the reflected sounds resulted in the activation of the visual cortex.” “That the primary visual cortex can execute auditory tasks is a remarkable testimony to the plasticity of the human brain,” says Wiegrebe. Interestingly, sighted subjects “exhibited only a relatively weak activation of the visual cortex during the echolocation task.” Click the link above to read the entire article. It’s a very interesting read.
Link via Cheryl Tipp.
What Does Space Sound Like?
Ever hear something a bit strange and wonder, “what’s that noise?”
Here are 11 Strange and Mysterious Sounds on Earth & Beyond. Click through to see the slide deck. A couple of the slides have interesting audio clips. Enjoy!
Looks like the worldwide hum has a companion:
Mysterious whistle-like noise from Caribbean Sea is so powerful that it can be heard from space.
The sound, a whistle, is so powerful its vibrations can be picked up from space. By machines. Humans can’t hear it because the sound, at “nearly ’30 octaves below the bottom of a piano,” is beyond human hearing range.
July 5, 2016 Acoustics, Everyday noise, Mystery noise 0 Read more >