How body motion influences echolocation while walking

Sci Rep. 2018 Oct 24;8(1):15704. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-34074-7.

Abstract

This study investigated the influence of body motion on an echolocation task. We asked a group of blindfolded novice sighted participants to walk along a corridor, made with plastic sound-reflecting panels. By self-generating mouth clicks, the participants attempted to understand some spatial properties of the corridor, i.e. a left turn, a right turn or a dead end. They were asked to explore the corridor and stop whenever they were confident about the corridor shape. Their body motion was captured by a camera system and coded. Most participants were able to accomplish the task with the percentage of correct guesses above the chance level. We found a mutual interaction between some kinematic variables that can lead to optimal echolocation skills. These variables are head motion, accounting for spatial exploration, the motion stop-point of the person and the amount of correct guesses about the spatial structure. The results confirmed that sighted people are able to use self-generated echoes to navigate in a complex environment. The inter-individual variability and the quality of echolocation tasks seems to depend on how and how much the space is explored.

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Biomechanical Phenomena
  • Distance Perception
  • Female
  • Head Movements
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Motion
  • Sound Localization / physiology*
  • Time Factors
  • Vision, Ocular
  • Walking / physiology*
  • Young Adult