• CanadaPlus
    4·
    2 days ago

    There’s an ~100% chance Helen Keller got asked about this. Uh, yep, although I don’t recognise the source and can’t guarantee it’s not fake or AI slop. The format would be new for slop, at least - the actual fact is in image form, there’s a comment section and it’s dated over a decade ago.

    If someone had a copy of her autobiography they could look for the passage to verify, but I don’t.

  • lordnikon@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    3 days ago

    This made me thing of another question if someone was born deaf but if you attached a device that would have a mic with an amplifier and a transducer that touched the skin so they could feel the vibration frequency changes based on sound. Could they develop a new way of hearing sounds? Could they learn to speak?

    • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      4·
      2 days ago

      Deaf people already may learn to speak without that through speech therapy, although for most it’s not their preferred method of communication.

      I don’t know how it’s changed in the modern day because the people I know who went through it as kids did it like 30 years ago, but it used to be common to hold a balloon against the throat while speaking to feel the different sounds you’re making.

    • CanadaPlus
      4·
      3 days ago

      Vibration receptors can’t distinguish frequencies well enough. Cochlear implants exist, though, and work by directly exciting the auditory nerve.

      • lordnikon@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        2 days ago

        Yeah I know it doesn’t have the resolution of ear drums and the implant is going to better but I wonder if someone can adapt to that lower resolution

        • CanadaPlus
          2·
          2 days ago

          Almost certainly not. Touch is really just geared to detecting the presence or absence of vibration. I’d be surprised if you could get a double digit set of waveforms which could be reliably distinguished, let alone the endless combinations that make up normal hearing.