What if you could “hear” colors? Or shapes? These features are normally perceived
visually, but using sensory substitution devices (SSDs) they can now be
conveyed to the brain noninvasively through other senses.
At the Center for Human Perception and Cognition, headed by
Prof. Amir Amedi of the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences and the
Institute for Medical Research Israel-Canada at the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem Faculty of Medicine, the blind and visually impaired are being
offered tools, via training with SSDs, to receive environmental visual
information and interact with it in ways otherwise unimaginable. The work of
Prof. Amedi and his colleagues is patented by Yissum, the Hebrew University’s
Technology Transfer Company.