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From: rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu (Mickey Rowe)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Simulated Vision Article Search
Message-ID: <41524@netnews.upenn.edu>
Date: 19 Apr 91 04:53:11 GMT
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In article <72559@brunix.UUCP> cs012136@cs.brown.edu (Garth
Shaneyfelt) writes: 
>A little while ago someone posted a reference to a series of
>experiments involving placing a wire mesh on the occipital lobe of
>blind persons which allowed them to "see" a 3X3 grid.  
> 				Thanks in advance 
>						-Arioch

Are you sure that you're remembering this correctly?  It sounds a bit
like bad science fiction to me.  I've spoken to a neurologist who
performs cortical stimulation on epileptic patients prior to surgery,
and he says that direct stimulations lead (sighted patients) to see
irregular blobs of light that are essentially uncontrollable (that is
the experimenter has little control over the size, shape, and location
of the percept). 

 I strongly suspect that what you are thinking of is an experiment
where a set of dull plastic pins was connected to a camera that caused
the pins to vibrate against the persons back.  In this setup the
frequency at which the pins vibrated was proportional to the intensity
of light at the corresponding part of the camera head.  Subjects could
learn to discriminate crude objects with such a system.

Does this sound familiar?

  (I'm sorry, I tried to find a reference just now, but I was
unsuccessful.)

Mickey Rowe    (rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu)