[Art_beyond_sight_learning_tools] europlasticity, eyePilot - color blindness, Wicab, art appreciation

[Lisa Yayla]

perhaps off subject, but ....
excerpt

Virtuoso violin recital falls on deaf ears in DC
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/richard_morrison/article1661083.ece

Like all the best wheezes, the Post ’s idea was one that “anybody could 
have thought of”, except that nobody did. The paper persuaded one of the 
world’s top violinists, Joshua Bell, to take his £2 million Stradivarius 
to a Washington subway station during the morning rush hour and play his 
heart out for nearly three quarters of an hour as commuters (the 
majority of them government officials, this being DC) wended their way 
to work. As he played (mostly masterpieces for solo violin by Bach), a 
hidden camera filmed the reaction of passers-by.


excerpt article
http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/198170
A Toronto psychiatrist explores the brain's startling capacity for 
rehabilitation

For centuries, science regarded the human brain as a machine, with every 
component in its place, every task assigned. If a part was broken or 
worn out, that was that.

It couldn't be replaced: its function was permanently lost.

It was a bleak supposition, but one borne out by untold numbers of 
stroke victims who never fully recovered, mentally limited youngsters 
who never progressed.

It was also wrong.

"There are certain mistakes that only people with high IQs can make," 
says Toronto research psychiatrist Dr. Norman Doidge. "The best and the 
brightest believed that everything had only one function and one location."

Which meant that people with damaged brains were, if not written off, 
certainly viewed as damaged for life.

"In the last century," says Doidge, "rehabilitative medicine was the 
most gloomy, pessimistic area for a doctor to work in because so many 
people couldn't get better."

In recent years, however, neuroscientists have come to the revolutionary 
realization that the brain's anatomy is not, in fact, fixed. It is 
flexible or, in their terminology, "plastic."

Injured or dysfunctional cells and circuits can indeed be regenerated 
and rewired; the location of a given function can, astonishingly, move 
from one place to another.

The discovery of neuroplasticity – that the brain can be transformed 
through mental exercise therapy – so intrigued Doidge that it led him on 
a four-year investigation of the cutting-edge research, scientists and 
patients behind it.

The Brain That Changes Itself, a panoramic examination of the profound 
implications, is the newly published result.


article



Bringing color to the color-blind
By Candace Lombardi
http://news.com.com/Bringing+color+to+the+color-blind/2008-1008_3-6175622.html

Story last modified Fri Apr 13 05:15:45 PDT 2007

The world may be in living color, but not everyone sees it that way.
Peter Jones and longtime business partner Dennis Purcell, who met at 
Polaroid, over the years have developed technology for color meters for 
commercial photography and film, and invented an architectural model 
camera that Polaroid, once a leading player in the photography business, 
licensed and produced.
Now at Boston-based Tenebraex--where Jones is president and Purcell is 
senior scientist--the two have taken their color technology knowledge 
into both the dark night and the digital world of color-coded data.
Their refinement of the previously unsubstantiated Retinex theory of 
color vision, put forth by Polaroid founder Edwin Land, may both help 
soldiers carrying out nighttime missions and bring some relief to the 8 
percent of American men and half-percent of American women who struggle 
daily with color blindness.
Jones, the photographer turned entrepreneur, gives his opinion on color 
blindness in a digital world driven by colorful data, and the stark 
reality of what color night vision, technology Tenebraex is pioneering, 
can do for the military.
Q: You've developed color night vision and software for the color-blind 
as well. How did you get interested in color technology?
Jones: Both Dennis and I used to work for Polaroid in years past, back 
when they were a big deal, and color was always of interest to us. 
Dennis actually invented a color meter for photographers that Polaroid 
licensed back in the early '80s. He came up with innovative ways for 
measuring the characteristics of light so you could come up with a set 
of filters that you could use on slide film, which was very intolerant 
of different kinds of light sources.
Dennis and I had invented a camera type that we had actually licensed to 
Polaroid and they put in production years ago. It was an architectural 
model camera. We've always had an interest in color, in color matters. 
Edwin Land (the founder of Polaroid) developed a theory of how your 
brain perceives color, which he called Retinex theory, that we always 
thought was correct.

What is the theory?
Jones: Retinex says that rather than measuring, what's first important 
to you is the name of the color, and being consistently independent of 
what color light is illuminating a scene. So if you're seeing a tiger at 
sunset or a tiger under a green forest canopy, you want it to still look 
orange even though the light that's hitting your eye may be a completely 
different color depending on what the illuminating light is like. And 
his Retinex theory said that your brain compared images of the three 
different channels--the red, green and blue senses in your retina--and 
from that, looking at the relative brightness, it figured out what the 
correct color name was and that's what you saw.
Depending on the brightness?
Jones: Well, by comparing the brightness. For instance, with your green 
senses in your retina, a piece of orange paper looks dark, while a piece 
of green paper looks bright. By comparing the two, your brain figures 
out what the correct color should be. That's why, for instance, if you 
take slide pictures under fluorescence, incandescent (light) or 
daylight, the pictures would be orange or green or blue or normal 
depending on the color of light. At the same time, to your eye, 
everything looks consistently the same color. Land's theory was about 
how colors look consistently the same pretty much irrespective of what 
color light is illuminating.
They stopped teaching his theory in school because he was just a 
businessman. We (Jones and Purcell) always thought he was correct. 
Four-plus years ago we figured, whatever the inspiration comes from, 
this conceptual framework might allow us to just figure out a way of 
making a practical four-color night vision system. And for our color 
night-vision system we figured out a way to make your brain see all of 
the colors while using only two channels, not three, which most people 
say you can't do.

You know, at conferences I'll say, "well, we're working with the Retinex 
theory" and, you know, people go, "Ha, ha, ha; he was just a 
businessman. He wasn't a real scientist." Well, he was one of the 
smartest people in the last century and we think his theory was right. 
And if his theory wasn't right, you would not see color when you looked 
through our device.
Can you explain that?
Jones: Most people think you need red, green and blue (RGB) or cyan, 
magenta and yellow (CMYK) in order to render all of the colors. But 
that's not true. You can do it with two dimensions. I don't know if 
you've ever seen a color diagram that has all the colors of the 
spectrum, but you can see all the colors by rendering it on a 
two-dimensional graph. What you need a third dimension for is so you can 
see, say, dark red versus light red or dark blue versus light red. The 
vertical access is only for brightness.
Are the ColorPath color night vision goggles and the EyePilot software 
for the color-blind born out of the same technology?
Jones: It's in the same researching way of thinking about the problem 
because then we said...You know, I don't know where this thought came 
from. But one way of describing a color-blind man, and most people who 
are color-blind are men, is that the output of their red and green 
channels are fused and they really only have a two-channel system. Well, 
I wondered if anything we learned from the ColorPath with a two-channel 
full-color system would allow us to help color-blind men see the full 
range of colors, to differentiate the full range of colors.
Are you color-blind, if you don't mind me asking?
Jones: No.
So what gave you inspiration to translate that theory and the color 
vision technology into developing this type of software?
Jones: You know, when I was a kid I went to school and learned from 
black text on white paper with an Encyclopedia Britannica. My daughter 
started elementary school doing homework on computers with broadband and 
the Web, and the way computers interact with people, color is a way that 
you differentiate lots of data on computer. You have pie charts, and 
stock charts, and weathers charts and scattered graphs.
In the real world the color-blind person will have cues. The red light 
on the stoplight is generally at the top, things like that. On the 
computer if you're color-blind, you don't know when you're looking at 
something if you're missing most of the information or you're getting it.
It affects 1 out of every 12 men, which means on average one kid in 
every class is color-blind. They're doing their research and testing and 
whatever on a computer, and sometimes they can get all the information 
and sometimes they don't have a clue. And it's a funny clientele. You 
know, guys tend to be taught to suck it up, don't complain. And you 
can't identify other color-blind people by looking at them. So, it's 
very hard.
You know, there are an equivalent number of men who have ADHD (attention 
deficit hyperactivity disorder) and they have buildings and foundations 
and things that study ADHD. But for the color-blind they don't, even 
though there are some safety and usability issues in terms of red lights 
and such. Say you're a really good (stock) trader, but the company is 
throwing you a lot of data and it's all color-coded. Maybe it takes you 
20 minutes to do something someone else is doing in 6 minutes, to read 
these complex charts, and so you're a little bit less efficient.
So is the EyePilot software corrective? Will it allow someone with 
color-blindness to see the same thing I see when I look at the color wheel?
Jones: No. What we're doing basically among a lot of the tools is, it's 
either simplifying or putting some information into things other than 
colors. For instance, to a color-blind person there may be eight 
segments on a pie chart and they can only tell apart two or three so 
they don't know looking at it what anything means. We have a Flash tool. 
If you have a pie chart and you say OK, I want to know what this segment 
means, you click on it in the key and everything in the EyePilot window 
with that color flashes.

Or if you're looking at a color-coded subway map and you're trying to 
get from here to there and they all cross over each other, you're not 
sure which route is consistent. You can click on one route, and 
everything in the EyePilot window with that exact color stays the same, 
and everything else changes to a gray-scale image.
It isn't just for the color-blind.
You mean, it can help anyone overwhelmed by too many colors?
Jones: Yeah. Computers have gotten so capable and able to relate so many 
data sets. Color is what computers use, but computers now can exceed the 
resolution ability of everyone. The information is important, and you do 
want to differentiate all those different kinds, and a map is the most 
effective, fastest way...but you can do millions of colors, so the 
natural progression is, wow, let's use 20 colors or 30 colors.
So does it rearrange the color scheme so that someone with color 
blindness can more easily distinguish a pie chart?
Jones: One of the tools does hue. It interactively remaps all the colors 
in the image. We see a little rotating dial and you can turn it until 
you see a place where now you can separate adjacent colors clearly.
Can you set the software once for your personal type of color blindness 
and then leave it?
Jones: No, because a color-blind person can't differentiate all the 
colors in the spectrum at the same time. For each image the color-blind 
person needs change. A color-blind person sees a two-dimensional slice 
through a three-dimension color space because they only have two 
channels. So any one shift in the color is just rotating the orientation 
of that slice, but it's still only a slice. What you need to do is to 
simplify or separate. For instance, two colors on a map that look quite 
different to someone with normal color vision look almost identical to a 
color-blind person. Using the hue tool they can rotate and all of a 
sudden there'll be a place where, "Oh! These two colors, which look the 
same, look like there's one area of color now. I can see clearly there's 
two sets of information here."
So what type of color blindness does the software accommodate?
Jones: Any type. And you don't need to do any testing, and that's 
because it's interactive. There've been other techniques that people 
have tried with filtered glasses and so forth. They make some colors 
easier to tell apart, but at the same time (they)'re going to make some 
colors that they could tell apart more difficult to tell apart. There's 
no technology that we know of that will allow a color-blind person to 
differentiate all colors.
Is the EyePilot software available for both Mac and PC users?
Jones: Yes. For $35. There's a 30-day free trial at Colorhelper.com.
Can you now explain how the cell phone version of EyePilot works?
Jones: We used as a test platform a Palm Pilot with a camera so that you 
would look at the real world on your screen and then be able to find 
out, using the different EyePilot tools, what a certain target color was 
or use a tool to differentiate.
Based on talking with color-blind people, they don't want to draw 
attention (to their condition). And so the idea with the cell phone is 
that people will think you're text messaging. No one knows you're using 
an assistive aid. You're just tapping on your cell phone. Meanwhile, the 
cell phone is telling you when you're standing in front of the bus map 
that's the route you take or that tie is green. But it's quiet, it's in 
the background and you're not drawing attention to yourself, but you're 
empowering yourself. That's why we think a cell phone platform is a good 
way to go with it.
When would the software for the cell phone be out?
Jones: Well, our job now is to go out and convince cell phone service 
providers or the hardware providers that this is a good teacher. Part of 
it is an educational aspect first, because most people don't realize how 
many people are color-blind. Certainly most people don't realize how 
debilitating it is in certain areas. Again, statistically it's 1 out of 
every 12 men.
Can you briefly explain the technology behind your ColorPath color night 
vision goggles?
Jones: The expensive core of a night vision device is the image 
intensifier tube. It takes the light from the front end and magnifies it 
10,000 times and then projects it on a green screen at the back. We have 
two very specific, very difficult-to-make filters, one in the front and 
one in behind the tube. But there are two channels and that's our 
innovation. Each filter has two channels and it alternately puts one 
channel in front of the tube. So we're on the simple end mechanically of 
the technology spectrum. The composition of the filters is what took us 
a couple of years to get control of and figure out how to leverage.
Because the colors that you "see" aren't actually hitting your eye. It 
goes back to that theory that Land had about how your brain looks at the 
data it's getting from your eyes and figures out how to paint the colors 
that you see in your brain. We came up with a way to give your brain 
these two channels of information, to fill in the colors.

None of those colors, or few of those colors, are actually hitting your 
eye, but your brain is making the scene look correct for you. The 
Retinex theory gave us the framework to think about how to do that. The 
practical advantage is that U.S. military owns tens of thousands of 
image intensifier tubes, the expensive part, and they don't need to get 
new ones. They can use an existing tube in our housing.
What does this mean for medics and military working in the field at 
night? What can they do now that was impossible before?
Jones: Well, let's take the medic case first. Under green night vision, 
blood looks the same color as water. So if you trying to set an IV with 
the regular green night vision you can't tell, because the fluid looks 
the same color as the blood. (Editors' note: Jones explained that medics 
need to see a little blood to know if they've hit a vein.) Obviously in 
combat we tend to fight at night using night vision because the bad guys 
by and large don't have night vision. You don't want to turn on the 
light if you're treating someone because that makes you a target.
There are other things where color at night is useful. Imagine you're 
looking for a kid who's lost in the woods and has a red sweater.
One of the guys we were showing prototypes to worked after (Hurricane) 
Katrina. He said you're going into a place, you've lost power, 
everything is ripped apart and you're looking at something trying to 
figure if it's an electric line or a water hose that you're about to 
step on.
We've been working with various military and Special Forces contacts to 
get their feedback. Our first production we expect to have in the market 
sometime this summer. And then we start the whole process of selling it 
into the Army, which we have done with other innovative technologies, 
which has surprisingly a (long, drawn-out process).
Is this only going to be sold to the military, or could medics working 
in civilian life be able to purchase these?
Jones: Our first concentration is on the military medic market.
Depth of field is another problem with night vision goggles. Does 
ColorPath deal with that issue?
Jones: It helps because your brain uses color for what's called scene 
segmentation. Your eyes actually are pretty crappy if you think about. 
It's a single lens made out of biological material and optical nerves 
that aren't very big. But you have a very expensive computer inside your 
head that takes these lousy images and does all sorts of enhancements. 
Your brain is using color at that first glance to help you make sense of 
what you're seeing in front of you.

Your brain uses color at a very primitive level for recognition. For 
instance, if you're looking with regular night vision out across a golf 
course, you have to sit there and try to figure out what's grass, what's 
the sand trap, what's the water hazard. With color you go, "Oh, grass, 
sand, water, and then there's some more grass on the other side," 
because the colors are giving you the answers instantly and you don't 
have to make sense of the different gray-scale values. So it isn't depth 
perception per se, but you're orienting yourself very quickly, so it 
does help a lot in terms of how quickly I make sense.
What is the battery usage?
Jones: You can get overnight with a pair of AA (batteries), which is the 
usual military goal.
I'm assuming this works in real time?
Jones: Yes, and that's another issue because there are other ways you 
could think about doing color, but now it has a quarter-second delay and 
that's not a good thing.
Can you explain the difference between the medic and the military ops 
version?
Jones: We can give you color down to a thin crescent moon, but below 
that our technology is taking too much energy out of the system for you 
to see well. We can move the filters out of the way (with the combat 
one). You just turn the knob, the filters go out of the way, you're back 
with what you started with (green night vision), but that isn't 
necessary for the medic.


excerpt
http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2007/03/22/things_that_show_color_in_the_night/
The company's other product, the eyePilot software, addresses a problem 
that's grown worse for the color blind as more information on the 
Internet comes in the form of colorful charts and maps.

article
http://www.excal.on.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3413&Itemid=2
Tonguepad lets blind taste to see

BrainPort turns taste buds into retinas

Snakes flick their tongues out to smell the air. What would you say if 
you are told there is an animal that could use its tongue to see? And 
what if you are told that this animal is a human?
No ordinary human of course, but a human with access to a "BrainPort." 
BrainPort Technologies, a subdivision of Wicab Inc., has been developing 
the technology and has produced remarkable results in its test subjects.
Blind test subjects using the device receive visual cues through their 
tongues from an electrode array, comparable to the pixels of your 
computer monitor. Some subjects have likened the feeling of electrode 
stimulation to the feeling of soda bubbles.
The BrainPort is designed to be used on the tongue because it is 
exceedingly sensitive with its nerve fibres close to the surface. Test 
subjects using the BrainPort have been able to perceive visual 
characteristics of objects in their environment such as size, shape and 
depth of field - they were even able to identify letters of the alphabet.
The technology operates on the principle that we do not see with our 
eyes; we see with our brains. Strictly speaking, optical images do not 
go beyond our retinas, but are broken down into impulse patterns that 
travel along optic nerve fibres. What we "see" is merely an 
interpretation of those nerve patterns.
People without vision develop their other senses to compensate. This 
principle was dramatised by the hero of the movie Daredevil - played by 
Ben Affleck - who developed the ability of echolocation after receiving 
a toxic retinal burn. People who are blind have actually been observed 
to develop echolocation skills in some cases, just not to the extent 
demonstrated in the movie.
Eyeglasses and contacts are examples of sensory augmentation and 
enhancing the visual sense by correcting light refraction. Braille is an 
example of sensory substitution that turns the typically visual task of 
reading into a tactile one, converting letters and numbers into a series 
of bumps that can be interpreted with the pad of a finger.
The BrainPort is an example of sensory substitution through 
"electrotactile stimulation." One of BrainPort's studies conducted PET 
brain scans on the subjects, and showed heightened levels of activity in 
the vision centre of the cerebral cortex. The subjects were experiencing 
a kind of sight.
This all goes to show that the brain is remarkably flexible when it 
comes to interpreting sensory input. Though the BrainPort shows enormous 
potential for helping the vision impaired, its primary application so 
far has been to help subjects with a compromised sense of balance.
Balance deficits usually result from inner ear problems that can leave 
patients unable to walk in severe cases. Patients using the BrainPort 
receive information from the tongue indicating tilt. When the head tilts 
right, the right side of the tongue is buzzed by the electrode array; 
when the head tilts left, the left side is buzzed.
Beyond regaining a remarkable amount of mobility and functionality, 
patients experienced muscle relaxation, as well as improved vision, 
depth perception sleeping patterns, appetite and emotional calm.
The momentum is growing behind this revolutionary technology, and 
cross-sensory input research is branching into bold new areas. 
Scientists are now looking for ways to communicate more detailed 
information such as colour. Other senses, includng sound for the hearing 
impaired and touch and for those with damaged skin areas, are being 
developed as well.
With new technology, military applications are always being considered. 
BrainPort could be implemented in tanks or fighter jets to deliver 
orientation signals or other information. The technology may have 
commercial applications for scuba divers by giving them a sense of 
balance and direction underwater.
Some of the groundwork for Wicab's technology was being done in the 
1960s and ‘70s in sensory substitution research conducted at the 
Smith-Kettlewell Institute by Paul Bach-y-Rita, professor of Orthopedics 
and Rehabilitation Medicine. That research, which has been going on for 
decades, is now coming to a head with the development of BrainPort.