WGBH Journal; Sonar Guide Glasses For The Blind

Good afternoon and welcome this GBH Journal. And I'm Marcia Hertz. We have two features on today's show. You will hear news and commentary from our regular contributor of Lou's minds. And first we have a piece concerning a new type of sonic guy glasses for the blind designed to aid blind people and sensing the objects around them. Reporter David Freud Berg spoke with Heidi magic. When I walk it without these glasses what I do is I imagine I convert to what I hear and what I feel and sense and smell and to get a visual image and convert it. But with these glasses that doesn't work I hear I hear sounds all around me. It's almost a feel good kind of kind of learning to operate by rhythm. I tend to feel as if I'm surrounded by music when I use these glasses as if the universe is sound and I have to make choices and this has to mean turning left or right or trying to find out what is this particular person treated as an excitement. And

emotionality to attach to it. I don't understand but it draws me to them. Blinded by an accident at age 15 seems well on the road to mastering the craft of mobility. Since last March when the Massachusetts commission for the blind bought him with $2000 specially equipped a pair of glasses Margit has been exploring his surroundings in much the same way as does a bat with sonar. A small round transducer in the center of the glasses emits high pitched sound waves which bounce off objects in the immediate environment and then return to two tiny receivers each of these is attached to an ear piece that hangs from the glasses allowing the wearer to hear background noise as well. Different objects depending on their location and physical characteristics produce different sounds here for example is how modules would sense the presence of a metal door.

Now listen closely for contrast as we cut to the sound produced by a north pole behind. Her. It is these subtle distinctions that constitute a new language with its own diversity a statics and for how do you imagine its own profound meaning. As a Harvard graduated economist studying aids to the blind. Majid was intrigued after first trying on the Sonic guide glasses last year. He has since spent three months training at the Boston College School of para pathology a science that helps the handicapped to travel in one exercise his instructor would arrange two poles in a gymnasium leaving Dr Magid to find the place where they sounded equally distant and to form an equal lateral triangle with a third pole. He learned to do so accurately. Another skill is judging motion as objects cross the field of sonar. This was the effect as I walked toward and then away from the sonar classes.

The inventor of the sonic guide glasses is Leslie King an electrical engineer now living in New Zealand who has developed a series of devices for the blind since World War 2. Officials from several states are observing Dr. much its progress to determine if your stricken family's mobility might have wide application. I sometimes write for example in the middle of into traffic and I run across a street that instead of crossing I may have started drawing so I tend to wander off somewhere into the middle of traffic and that's got a disconcerting usually. Without these glasses getting back into I manage but it's kind of elusive intuitive process of making the most of whatever I sense around

me. But with these glasses I can pick up the metal pole that usually at any corner of a street from 20 feet away so that I can you know as soon as I pick it up I know where I am and aim for it so it gives me a lot of information about what's beyond my cane which I use now and I still use with these glasses. Cain only reaches out to a couple of feet whereas this reaches out to 25 feet maybe 22 feet. To my way of travelling I may have making choices is significantly different. It's not always easy to interpret these things because the glasses are in stereo and they display all the things that come come at me and that can be quite numerous. It's also each of these objects varies in pitch so that a far object has a high pitch. A nearby object has a low pitch. In addition to these that each object has a different quality of sound a tree will sound

soft leaves or sound softer glass world with one harsh and bell like that every every object has its own kind of quality and characteristic. But all of that is coming into into the glasses and into my senses in itself. It takes a lot of lot of effort and. Experience to try to make sense of all of this. You've been at this now for only half a year. Is it fair to assume that with a couple more years practice your ability to discriminate between this a re of sounds will be refined and you'll have a fairly clear notion of where everything is and one of you I'm sure it will be refined but I see it just as more of a five year process. If I had been a musician I suspect that these glasses would work better for me more quickly. A lot of the things are a matter of distinguishing

one one sound from another which are very close together. For example if I walk along the street and I want to find a particular entrance doorway. That doorway would probably have knobs are different from the doorway in the other. Next to it and these glasses can generally do that distinguish between you know its knobs that are significantly different from one another to around now from straight up and down now below. You make it sound differentia but for me to hear that and to know that and to recognize and say oh that's that you know that's the up and down now brother in the round one. That's a tough thing and I suspect a musician would be it would be much better at it. It's affected my own musical interests so I've since I've worn these glasses I've become known. I've become kind of deeply interested in learning each other. I've never had that it's before but there's something about the pitch of the cello. It may be likened to the sound kind of penetrates into me the way the glasses do but I listen to orchestras differently. I listen to the

pieces more of the instruments much my much more aware of the instruments and where they are. What are interesting things to listen to through your sonar medium. I think I like pool sounds you know what that is is that the edges of things where there's a little angle reflects a lot of sound so the volume is high and then the signal is very clear. Now as I walk along past the row of windows on the lawn. Long city street which has lots of windows right up to the wall or are a series of polls as they come towards me and disappear. The guts out of coming towards me getting lower and lower in pitch as you get near. Of having two or three pulls in in you know coming at me. It's a fantastic sound. Is there a sense of symmetry to it the coming and going and coming and going and is that what's appealing. Is it a massaging symmetry.

It is that I think that's very much the rhythm of it yes and the tone is the rhythm of the tones changing coming and going deeper and deeper and another one coming. It is a rhythmic you're right. But it also sounds very eerie. It has a strange quality of being somewhere else. A sound without a location although it has a location it's ahead of me and it's a little to the right or left. It still has that kind of quality of of coming from nowhere having no spatial dimension using these glasses sometimes a little bit like listening to an oracle you know quite sure what it means but to me that's the that's of the essence of music and the essence of of an of an active life. And I would like to have it remain there. You tell me something of your feeling in walking down the street with that uncertainty.

Well that it is a feeling of never quite being sure of having signals come in and having a little doubt as to whether I have recognized it right. There's always that doubt as to what it means in a doubt as to what to do about it. That ever present to me and I suspect that that is almost inherent when one makes choices outside of pictures when oen makes choices in the domain of sound where sound is a logic where emotion drama is illogic. There is apt to be always that some doubt and I think what I'm sensing is that inherent difference between between the temple of life in motion and the tempo of something still like object. Do you regret being sightless. No I know I don't.

I sometimes get annoyed at being sightless it it bothers me I sometimes get my not seeing things. It's troublesome sometimes and it gets in the way of things. But I I don't think I regret it. I might if I did regret it when I first lost my sight for the first two years but I have I've basically accepted it hasn't made that much difference to me. I think I don't think life is any harder than than it would have been otherwise or more easy or different to be significantly different. Have these glasses changed that they make no difference to me I mean where I've always been a good traveler and they don't really they help me. They're in their system making me make me feel more secure. They make me feel I'm better equipped to make it. And I feel a little bit that I'm on the road to being. Entering a craft of mobility

gives me a sense of of of something that has developed over the years like a craft is it offers an interesting avenue of research and devices. I think it poses a very important question that always exist on devices and in technology I think is at its most important role when it tries to enhance or how a person functions or what a person is when it's when the technology and the person kind of meld together. Here in the area of the handicapped that's very vital and important to be done right. Technology tends to be too practical. And I think it is fielded by and large in being very helpful to the handicapped to very very few good advance devices. These glasses are one of them. And the reason I think is that the inventors have neglected have not really understood the ethical implications or value implications the impact on on life and relationship between people. But all the way done on

and on the technological side and have not known how to integrate it in here is here is to me the when I wear the glasses I think that is one of the intriguing parties here is a device that does both. It is it does a static fortuitously by accident but doesn't matter. Could the sounds be made more a statically appealing could they. Present day music of the environment for you. I wish it could be. I know I have no clues as to how to do that but I think it could be due to improved in that direction. I have a problem though when I say that and even to to recommend it because I think that what they might do is overdeveloped is that X or. Or drop it because it's too difficult to deal with this study component I don't think was really understood by the developers of these classes what they did was to make it least disagreeable and I don't think they build it up to be something terribly appear appealing interesting but

here is a device that does both things. Sometimes I would just enjoy them and not using very much I will turn them on and just kind of wander down a street. I like to do that in the woods especially when the sounds are very agreeable and it's hard to imagine a pioneer in Sonar directed travel making his way across a bridge between practical technology and wonderous new realm of perception. Stephen Friedberg in Boston. And now here is Louis Lyons with a look at the new

President Sadat is on his way to Washington seeking support for his failing peace effort. King Hussein of Jordan has called on the United States to become more involved to undertake the role of arbitrator rather than just intermediaries. President Carter must feel he's involved himself pretty far. He sent Prime Minister Begin to handle of a note on his deep concern it reports of more settlements established in the disputed territories. He reminded the Israeli leader of a commitment that Carter understood begun and ion it made to him last September to authorize no new settlements for a year at least to this Dyan issued a denial in the speech to the Knesset yesterday. He said all they agreed to was any more settlements would be quote in the framework of military camps and quote and they didn't say for a year but only for this year which then had three months left to Mr. Carter's pointed inquiry about a new settlement reported at Shiloh. Now Iran said it was authorized only as quote an archeological camp quote. His Israeli

opposition Labor Party said this it doesn't fool anyone and only present Israel as deceptive. While it presents prime minister begins problems to placate his own right wing that he'd promised he'd never give up an inch of territory while insisting to Sadat and Carter that he is prepared to negotiate to the wary American diplomats who fail to get an agreement even on a statement of negotiating principles. It looks as though the whole business is back to square one. So that's visit Hussein's appeal and Diane's need to explain all exhibit the contest for American opinion. Well our government reports that two hundred seventy thousand more jobs in January cut unemployment by a tenth of a percent to six point three percent. With violence spreading in the coal regions in the 60 a day of this strike President Carter intervened to summon the coal miners to resume talks

to settle a strike in Alabama 200 state troopers were fired on as they broke through a mom to rescue seven non-striking miners and internal dispute in the Carter administration over the who control CIA operations abroad. It's broken out on the front page. President Carter had issued an order that ambassadors should have authority over all agencies operating in their jurisdiction. The State Department issued guidelines. Taking this literally I mean what it said. The CIA issued guidelines to their overseas personnel inter-breeding it as exempting covert CIA projects. The president's order of course reflected a long background when J K Galbraith was ambassador to India. He wrote his old friend President Kennedy that the activities of the CIA in India were a stupid nuisance and he was putting them under wraps. The Bay of Pigs was soon to give Kennedy confirmation of Galbraith's assessment and a whole shelf of books on

Vietnam has added to it. The Alabama Senate has defeated a motion to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment which still lacks three states with a deadline next spring. Remember Paul C1 whose confirmation as an arms control director had such a struggle. Well he's in there pitching his agency has made a study of the effect of the neutron bomb that miniature nuclear bomb devised to destroy troops without destroying property. The Defense Department has been trying to tone it down or delay its publication until after their budget submission to Congress. He seems to think and administration official is quoted in The Times yesterday that arms control is an end in itself rather than only an instrument of our overall national security. That makes him a disruptive factor in some ways you might be described as a left wing. KISSINGER Well one kid said that that's the nicest thing that's been said about me in years. Somebody will surely

nominate her appearance surprised SEPs cartoon in yesterday's Globe. It shows President Carter his panama broadcast in hand but looming over him a shadowy figure all teeth and glasses with a rough rider hat and the caption I demand equal time. The figure of Teddy Roosevelt is not labeled. It's 75 years since seized taken out of your american interesting history test to ask a high school class who is the ghostly figure with the president. I noted this yesterday. Today it finds a particular point in the report of the National Educational Testing of AGW that high schoolers understanding of their government and its foreign affairs has declined in the six years since its mass testing of one hundred forty five thousand teenagers. Half of them couldn't name a senator of their state. Only half know how our senators elected only a third know what the Bill of Rights is about. Well one can't help feeling that failure to inculpate such elemental knowledge of their government might be

corrected. Your teachers should get away from the conventional pattern of teaching history for a few minutes a day to enliven it from the day's news. Panama makes ready history lesson and such a cartoon as saps. I lean into it as part of the dynamic presidency of Pharaoh's about the teacher can amuse the class with Mr Dooley's description of Roosevelt's account of the Spanish-American War alone in Cuba. Julie called it Oriental Faber's current book on the Panama Canal that quotes Roosevelt's Attorney General Knox. When the president asked him for a legal opinion to back up his panama action. Why spoil so brilliant a coup with any taint of legality. Knox is supposed to reply or take a headline yesterday that strikes the eye by its unfamiliarity delis BELIN Billie's rejects British Formula. Well you find billies is the new name that the former British Honduras has chosen for its new independence but its border

dispute with Guatemala that Britain is trying to mediate is the same old one. Back in 1893 let our secretary of state Richard on me to warn the British against violating the Monroe Doctrine that bitter dispute brought relations with England to the brink of war believes makes a neat introduction to the story of the Monroe Doctrine. Billy's new name is just one instance that a map of Africa or the Middle East will show. As to the change of names almost everywhere that former colonies have achieved independence. Iran for Persia Zambia for the Congo and so on. These open up the long period of European imperialism history and geography merge with the new names on the map and cutting out the Billy's story myself as Pippin of the one next to it. Payoffs to stir up Chicago. It offers a chance for a little English lesson. Why the OP instead won't stir cover it. E.B. White's college English teacher

admonish his classes to dispense with needless words. That was Professor will strike of Cornell and the man who taught English to E.B. White is where the hearing White remembers trunks rows of English Sixty years later in his new book essays of E.B. White trunks rule 13 was omit needless words white recalls Professor Strunk leaning forward over his desk grasping both lap Pelz to emphasize forcibly omit needless words he said it over three times to make a point. This ruling is others will Strunk published in a little book Elements of Style which 40 years later White was persuaded by Macmillan company to revive with commentary of his own. I remember when it came out in one thousand fifty nine I bought copies to send all my children to them teachers and the others equally dependent for their living on the English language. It was one eighty eight marked off from 250 trunks original without needless words was only 48 pages. It had grown to 76

pages with White's introduction an added chapter in his no struck essay. What gives if you are strong celebrations on eliminating needless words he would cut used for fuel purposes to used for fuel. And this is a subject to this subject and he would trim a question as to whether to whether. Again white notes with appreciation of forwards are foreign. If I have a history in English get tangled together. It may be from remembrance of all Professor Slesinger who always corrected the sentences in the papers of his Harvard history classes. This must have had its effect on students who shrugged off required freshman English to find that it made a difference in their history course. The women School Board horrified by what it hears of the grammar and spelling of teenagers has now ordered teachers to correct the grammar and spelling on every school paper. Jack Thomas and his go column Cheers for this concern with grammar.

But a University of New Hampshire professor in a letter to the paper demurred at putting the emphasis on rules of grammar. Have them write he says. They'll learn to make sense of it by writing them. There's one plus among the discouraging words of the AGW test report. Three quarters of the 13 year old showed a positive racial attitude they'd willingly associate with the other races. This means that the sad news out reported of the Hyde Park High School Seniors election the other day is not typical with one hundred forty white students and one hundred fourteen black in the class. Only whites were elected to all of the offices. The tragic atmosphere this represents then is only local and the cause is readily identifiable. United States Senate has voted 74 20 to add a large tractor giant redwoods in California to the National Forest. House committee has approved the measure. This was against the strong lobbying of timber interests. One such opposition couldn't

stop such a conservation bill. But as population has flowed into California the political balance has changed. The influence of timber interests with Congress has diminished. People want to keep the forests and people have votes. And that's th journal for today and for this week shows produced by Marcia herds the engineer today was Miles Siegel. This is Marshall Hertz have a very good weekend.

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