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Evidence record

Can the brain learn a new sense?

Every sentence on the exploration belongs to at least one claim below. Each says what kind of statement it is, what it rests on, what the evidence does not establish, and how far it was checked. Nothing here is a score, and none of it is a verdict on a belief or a theory.

Last checked 24 September 2026.

  • A judgement, not a fact: 5
  • Source checked: 27
  • Partly checked: 4
  • Presented as open: 1

If something here is wrong, misquoted, out of date or unfair, write to support@unknownoceans.com and give the claim number, which does not change.

What the question takes for granted

A scientific question with a philosophical edge. Whether information from one sense can be delivered through another, and whether the brain puts it to use, has experimental answers. Whether the result counts as a new sense depends on what a sense is, and that part is argued rather than measured.

  • Information meant for one sense can be delivered usefully through another

    Established

    Established in the laboratory for sight delivered as touch or sound: trained users detect, locate and identify things they could not otherwise. How far that goes in daily life is a separate question.

  • There is a fact about which sense an experience belongs to

    Contested

    The question asks whether a new sense is learned, which assumes that what makes an experience seeing, hearing or something else can be settled. Philosophers and psychologists disagree about the criteria, and some doubt the question has a determinate answer for sensory substitution.

  • Brain regions are organised by the task they perform rather than by the sense that feeds them

    Contested

    The page’s own framing leans on this, and it is one side of a live argument. Amedi’s group holds it as a general principle; Bedny’s group argues that cortex deprived of vision is more flexible than a task label allows.

How the question is labelled

Claim: Reading with sound

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

The page’s own title. It names the result in claims 14 to 16: blind adults identified letters delivered as sound.

Claim 1 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: New senses

Kind
Framing. Signposting. It asserts nothing a source could check.

The question

Claim: Blind adults trained to hear images read letters with them, using the same patch of cortex that sighted readers use for print.

Kind
Experimental result. What an experiment or trial found, under its own conditions. A result in animals, cells or a simulation is not a result in people.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

What this does not establish

Seven participants in the main group, all born fully blind. The “same patch” is the region located in sighted people and applied to the blind group; the study scanned the blind while they listened, not while they read print.

Later work looked for

Europe PMC, 2013 on, title "visual word form area" and blind: Kim et al. 2017 find the region in blind Braille readers also responds to spoken grammar, which qualifies how selective it is (claim 26); nothing found that fails to replicate the soundscape result.

Claim 3 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Information from one sense can be delivered through another.

Kind
What the field holds. The settled view of a field, as a review, a consensus statement or a reference work gives it. Not one study.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    Reading the World through the Skin and Ears: A New Perspective on Sensory SubstitutionIntroduction, second paragraph

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026 · Research in people · Review of the field

    The source reads: Robust evidence shows that sensory substitution devices provide their users with new abilities to detect and/or respond to changes in their environments.

  • Context

    Sensory substitution and the human-machine interfaceabstract

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Abstract only, 24 September 2026 · Research in people · Review of the field

    The source reads: The brain is able to use this information in place of that usually transmitted from an intact sense organ.

What this does not establish

Delivered, not replaced: the same review says performance stays below that of the sense being substituted (claim 35).

Later work looked for

Crossref, 2015 on, "sensory substitution devices": later reviews (Kristjánsson et al. 2016; a 2018 British Academy volume) continue from the same premise; nothing that changes it.

Claim 4 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: In people born blind, a region that specialises in reading takes up the work when letters arrive as sound.

Kind
Experimental result. What an experiment or trial found, under its own conditions. A result in animals, cells or a simulation is not a result in people.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

What this does not establish

Shown by fMRI in seven people and one further case. The authors note that fMRI cannot show the region is needed for the task.

Later work looked for

Europe PMC, 2013 on, title "visual word form area" and blind: Kim et al. 2017 qualify the region’s selectivity in blind readers; reported on the page.

Corrected

24 September 2026. Previously: “Information from one sense can be delivered through another, and the brain regions that specialise in a task take up the work regardless of which sense delivers it.” The page rests on one study of one region. "The brain regions that specialise in a task" generalised it to every such region, which is one group’s hypothesis (claim 24), not a finding.

Claim 5 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: The team that showed it reads that as cortex organised by what it does rather than by which organ feeds it; another group, finding the same region in blind people responding to spoken grammar as well, argues that cortex without vision can take on a wide range of functions.

Kind
What scholars argue. A report of what specialists argue, or where they disagree.
Review
Partly checked. Only part of the source could be read. What was not read is listed.

What this does not establish

Bedny’s review was read only as an abstract. The two positions are not strict opposites: both accept that the region responds to letters without vision, and Kim et al. cite Amedi’s review beside Bedny’s for cortex that is flexible rather than fixed.

Corrected

24 September 2026. Previously: “That suggests those regions are organised by what they do rather than by which organ feeds them.” The reading was presented as the page’s own inference with no rival. Bedny’s group has published a different interpretation of the same region in blind people; both are now attributed.

Claim 6 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: A device that turns an image into a soundscape, column by column,

Kind
Observation. Something measured or seen, as the named source reports it.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

The device is the vOICe, used in the study the page describes.

Later work looked for

How the device works; not a finding later work revises.

Claim 7 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: sounds like a novelty.

Kind
Framing. Signposting. It asserts nothing a source could check.

Claim: Height becomes pitch, brightness becomes volume, and the picture is swept left to right.

Kind
Observation. Something measured or seen, as the named source reports it.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    Reading with Sounds: Sensory Substitution Selectively Activates the Visual Word Form Area in the BlindExperimental Procedures, Visual-to-Auditory Sensory Substitution

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026 · Research in people · Experiment

    The source reads: each image is scanned from left to right, such that time and stereo panning constitute the horizontal axis in its sound representation, tone frequency makes up the vertical axis, and loudness corresponds to pixel brightness

  • Supports

    Reading the World through the Skin and Ears: A New Perspective on Sensory Substitutionsection "A confirmation bias regarding performance and training"

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026 · Texts · Review of the field

    The source reads: In the vOICe, for instance, the scene is scanned from left to right, and higher frequenies codes for higher positions in the field, while loudness codes for brightness

Later work looked for

How the device works; not a finding later work revises.

Claim 9 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Some users say that for some tasks it feels less like hearing and more like seeing,

Kind
Observation. Something measured or seen, as the named source reports it.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    Reading the World through the Skin and Ears: A New Perspective on Sensory Substitutionsection "A confirmation bias regarding the subjective and neurological changes", on Auvray et al. 2007

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026 · Research in people · Review of the field

    The source reads: For many participants, the modal characteristic varied with the task (being more often visual for localization, and auditory for identification).

  • Qualifies

    Reading the World through the Skin and Ears: A New Perspective on Sensory Substitutionsame section

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026 · Research in people · Review of the field

    The source reads: The results from subjective questionnaires certainly need to be handled with care, especially as the very fact of raising the question can bias participants

What this does not establish

Self-reports, from few people, and the study the review describes used blindfolded sighted participants. The reports vary with the task.

Later work looked for

Crossref, 2013 on, "sensory substitution subjective experience": the 2018 British Academy volume on sensory substitution continues the argument over what users experience; nothing that settles it.

Corrected

24 September 2026. Previously: “After enough training, people stop hearing the sound and start perceiving the shape, which is the interesting part and the hard one to describe.” Stated as what happens to everyone who trains. The evidence is self-report from some users, varying with the task, as the page itself says in claim 31.

24 September 2026. Previously: “After enough training, some users say it stops feeling like hearing a sound and starts feeling more like perceiving a shape, which is the interesting part and the hard one to describe.” The review reports that the sense the experience was likened to varied with the task, more often visual for localisation and auditory for identification. It does not say the feeling of hearing stops, that it becomes the perception of a shape, or that this comes with enough training.

Claim 10 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: which is the interesting part and the hard one to describe.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

The page’s own judgement. It follows from claims 31 to 33: users’ descriptions differ and the question of what the experience is remains argued.

Claim 11 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

What was shown

Claim: What was shown

Kind
Framing. Signposting. It asserts nothing a source could check.

Blind adults learned to read with it

Claim: Blind adults learned to read with it

Kind
Experimental result. What an experiment or trial found, under its own conditions. A result in animals, cells or a simulation is not a result in people.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

What this does not establish

What the study measured was recognising letters and other images, not reading speed or reading of text.

Later work looked for

Europe PMC, 2013 on, title "visual word form area" and blind: nothing that revises the behavioural result.

Claim 13 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: In a 2012 study, seven congenitally blind adults trained on such a device, for 73 hours on average, learned to identify letters and other images from their soundscapes.

Kind
Experimental result. What an experiment or trial found, under its own conditions. A result in animals, cells or a simulation is not a result in people.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

What this does not establish

A small group. Letters were one of seven trained categories, and the scanner task used letter strings rather than words.

Later work looked for

Europe PMC, 2013 on, title "visual word form area" and blind: nothing that revises the behavioural result.

Corrected

24 September 2026. Previously: “In a 2012 study, congenitally blind participants trained on such a device could identify letters and words from their soundscapes, with accuracy well above what chance or guessing explains.” The accuracy the study reports is for sorting soundscapes into seven categories, not for identifying letters and words; words were shown only in a demonstration film. The group size, training time and the figures are now given as the paper gives them.

Claim 14 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Asked which of seven categories a soundscape showed, the six who were tested were right 78 per cent of the time on average, against 14 per cent by chance.

Kind
Experimental result. What an experiment or trial found, under its own conditions. A result in animals, cells or a simulation is not a result in people.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

What this does not establish

78.1 per cent is a mean across six people, with a standard deviation of 8.8 points, on 35 images. The paper reports that letters were recognised as well as the other categories.

Later work looked for

Europe PMC, 2013 on, title "visual word form area" and blind: nothing that revises the figure.

Corrected

24 September 2026. Previously: “” Replaces "with accuracy well above what chance or guessing explains" with the measurement the paper reports.

24 September 2026. Previously: “Asked which of seven categories a soundscape showed, six of them were right 78 per cent of the time, against 14 per cent by chance.” 78.1 per cent is the group's mean across the six participants tested (standard deviation 8.8 points), not each one's score; the wording read as if all six scored 78.

Claim 15 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: In the scanner, their visual word form area responded more to letter soundscapes than to soundscapes of faces, houses, bodies, objects or textures.

Kind
Experimental result. What an experiment or trial found, under its own conditions. A result in animals, cells or a simulation is not a result in people.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

What this does not establish

A group result by fMRI, with the region located from sighted volunteers. The study did not test spoken language, which Kim et al. later found the same region responds to in blind readers.

Later work looked for

Europe PMC, 2013 on, title "visual word form area" and blind: Kim et al. 2017 qualify the region’s selectivity in blind readers; cited here and on the page.

Corrected

24 September 2026. Previously: “While they did it, imaging showed activity in the visual word form area: the small region in the left occipitotemporal cortex that lights up when a sighted person reads print.” "Activity" undersold the result and made it easy to misread: the finding is selectivity, a stronger response to letters than to every other category tested.

Claim 16 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: That is the small region in the left occipitotemporal cortex that lights up when a sighted person reads print.

Kind
Observation. Something measured or seen, as the named source reports it.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

Later work looked for

Europe PMC, 2013 on, title "visual word form area": later work (7-T and precision fMRI) refines the region’s internal structure; nothing that moves or dissolves it.

Claim 17 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Those participants had never seen.

Kind
Observation. Something measured or seen, as the named source reports it.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

Later work looked for

A fact about the study’s participants; not something later work revises.

Claim 18 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: The region had never received visual input, and it took up reading anyway.

Kind
Experimental result. What an experiment or trial found, under its own conditions. A result in animals, cells or a simulation is not a result in people.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

What this does not establish

Every participant had read Braille since childhood, and the same region already responds to Braille, so the soundscapes arrived at a region that had taken up reading by touch.

Later work looked for

Europe PMC, 2013 on, title "visual word form area" and blind: Kim et al. 2017 find the region in blind readers takes on spoken language as well; that qualifies how specific the uptake is, not that it happens.

Claim 19 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: In one blind woman who had never learned the shapes of printed Hebrew letters, it began responding to them as soundscapes after less than two hours of training.

Kind
Experimental result. What an experiment or trial found, under its own conditions. A result in animals, cells or a simulation is not a result in people.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

What this does not establish

One person, five letters, two scans on one day. She was a fluent Braille reader, so the region was already used for reading.

Later work looked for

Europe PMC, 2013 on, title "visual word form area" and blind: no later case of this kind found.

Corrected

24 September 2026. Previously: “” Added. The study’s evidence that the uptake can be learned in adulthood is this case, and the page’s question is whether the brain can learn.

Claim 20 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

What that says about the brain’s organisation

Claim: What that says about the brain’s organisation

Kind
Framing. Signposting. It asserts nothing a source could check.

Claim: The standard picture assigns cortex to senses: this is visual cortex, that is auditory.

Kind
What scholars argue. A report of what specialists argue, or where they disagree.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

The review describes visual areas as typically considered specific to one sense, which is the picture the page calls standard.

  • Supports

    Is There a Future for Sensory Substitution Outside Academic Laboratories?section 1, Introduction

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026 · Research in people · Review of the field

    The source reads: a region typically considered modality-specific (e.g. visual areas) can be recruited to process the same cognitive operation but from a different sensory domain

Claim 22 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: The result above fits a different picture, in which a region is defined by the computation it performs and recruits whatever input can support it.

Kind
Hypothesis. A proposed explanation, not an established one.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

What this does not establish

“Fits” is the right word: a result consistent with a picture does not establish it. The authors also note that fMRI cannot show the region is needed for the task.

Other readings

Bedny’s group reads the same evidence as cortex taking on whatever function its inputs support, including spoken language (claims 25 to 27).

Claim 23 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Amir Amedi’s group, which ran the study, argues that this is a principle of the whole brain and that rehabilitation after sensory loss should be built on it.

Kind
What scholars argue. A report of what specialists argue, or where they disagree.
Review
Partly checked. Only part of the source could be read. What was not read is listed.

What this does not establish

Both reviews were read as abstracts only. Amedi is an author of the 2012 study and of both reviews, so this is the study’s own authors’ position.

Corrected

24 September 2026. Previously: “That is a claim with evidence behind it rather than a metaphor, and it changes what rehabilitation after sensory loss is aiming at.” The page asserted in its own voice a contested interpretation and a consequence for rehabilitation. Both are the study group’s position, and a rival group (Kim et al. 2017; Bedny 2017) reads the evidence differently. Each is now attributed.

Claim 24 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Marina Bedny’s group reads the evidence from blindness differently.

Kind
What scholars argue. A report of what specialists argue, or where they disagree.
Review
Partly checked. Only part of the source could be read. What was not read is listed.

  • Supports

    Evidence from Blindness for a Cognitively Pluripotent Cortexabstract

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Abstract only, 24 September 2026 · Research in people · Review of the field

    The source reads: Studies of plasticity in blindness suggest that this mind-brain mapping is highly flexible during development.

What this does not establish

Read as an abstract only.

Claim 25 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: In people born blind they find the same patch responding to the grammar of spoken sentences as well as to Braille,

Kind
Experimental result. What an experiment or trial found, under its own conditions. A result in animals, cells or a simulation is not a result in people.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

What this does not establish

Ten congenitally blind and fifteen sighted participants. “Written words” for the blind group means Braille. The region’s response to syntax was measured; whether it matters for understanding sentences was not tested, which the paper names as an open question.

Later work looked for

Europe PMC, 2013 on, title "visual word form area" and blind: this is itself the later work; nothing newer found that reverses it.

Claim 26 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: and argue that cortex deprived of its usual input can take on a wide range of functions, reading among them.

Kind
Hypothesis. A proposed explanation, not an established one.
Review
Partly checked. Only part of the source could be read. What was not read is listed.

  • Supports

    Evidence from Blindness for a Cognitively Pluripotent Cortexabstract

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Abstract only, 24 September 2026 · Research in people · Review of the field

    The source reads: We propose that human cortices are cognitively pluripotent, that is, capable of assuming a wide range of cognitive functions.

  • Supports

    Evidence from Blindness for a Cognitively Pluripotent Cortexabstract

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Abstract only, 24 September 2026 · Research in people · Review of the field

    The source reads: In blindness, ‘visual’ cortices take on higher-cognitive functions, including language and mathematics

  • Supports

    Development of the Visual Word Form Area Requires Visual Experience: Evidence from Blind Braille ReadersDiscussion, first paragraph

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026 · Research in people · Experiment

    The source reads: In blind individuals, the very same occipitotemporal region that responds to Braille also responds to syntax.

    Carries “reading among them”: the region that takes on syntax in blind readers is the one that responds to Braille.

What this does not establish

A proposal. Bedny’s review, which makes it, was read only as an abstract; the Kim et al. experiment behind it was read in full.

Other readings

Amedi’s group holds that regions keep their task whatever the sense (claim 24).

Claim 27 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

What it amounts to

Claim: What it amounts to

Kind
Framing. Signposting. It asserts nothing a source could check.

Claim: A region that had never seen anything took up reading, which is not what a map organised by organ would do.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

The page’s reading of claims 19 and 22. Both sides of the dispute in claims 24 to 27 would accept it; they differ over what replaces the map by organ.

Claim 29 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Whether it becomes a sense

Claim: Whether it becomes a sense

Kind
Framing. Signposting. It asserts nothing a source could check.

Claim: Users describe the experience differently, and some report that it stops feeling like listening.

Kind
Observation. Something measured or seen, as the named source reports it.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    Reading the World through the Skin and Ears: A New Perspective on Sensory Substitutionsection "A confirmation bias regarding the subjective and neurological changes", on Auvray et al. 2007

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026 · Research in people · Review of the field

    The source reads: For many participants, the modal characteristic varied with the task (being more often visual for localization, and auditory for identification). Some participants even considered the experience to be like an unusual modality – such as having a sonar sense.

What this does not establish

Questionnaire answers from blindfolded sighted participants in the study the review describes, and two late-blind users in another. The review warns that asking the question can bias the answer.

Later work looked for

Crossref, 2013 on, "sensory substitution subjective experience": the 2018 British Academy volume continues the argument; nothing that settles it.

Claim 31 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Whether that is seeing, a changed kind of hearing or something closer to reading is argued over,

Kind
Open question. Something the page says is not known.
Review
Presented as open. The page says this is unresolved, and the review found that it is.

Three positions: that it is seeing, that it stays hearing (or touch), and Deroy and Auvray’s own proposal that it is more like reading.

Corrected

24 September 2026. Previously: “Whether that constitutes a new perceptual modality or a very fluent interpretation of sound is not settled and may not be answerable by any measurement.” Replaced with the positions the cited review sets out: that it is vision, that it remains the substituting sense, or (the review’s own) that it resembles reading. The doubt about measurement is now attributed to those who hold it.

Claim 32 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: and some who study it doubt that any measurement could settle it.

Kind
What scholars argue. A report of what specialists argue, or where they disagree.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

What this does not establish

One review’s doubt, not a field’s. Their reason is that the answer depends on philosophical theories of what makes an experience visual or auditory.

Claim 33 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: The behavioural question is cleaner:

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

The page’s judgement: performance can be measured where experience is argued over, as claims 33 and 35 show.

Claim 34 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: performance improves with training and carries over to new images of the kinds that were trained, though it stays slower and less accurate than sight.

Kind
What the field holds. The settled view of a field, as a review, a consensus statement or a reference work gives it. Not one study.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

What this does not establish

Carry-over is shown mainly within trained categories; the review notes users had not been tested on wholly novel kinds of stimulus.

Later work looked for

Crossref, 2015 on, "sensory substitution devices": Kristjánsson et al. 2016 still stress training and bandwidth limits; nothing that changes it.

Corrected

24 September 2026. Previously: “The behavioural question is cleaner: performance improves with training, transfers to new material, and becomes fast enough to be useful.” No source carries "fast enough to be useful"; the review finds performance slower and less accurate than the sense substituted, and the next passage explains why the devices are little used. "New material" overstated the transfer, which is to new items in trained categories.

Claim 35 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Why the devices are little used

Claim: Why the devices are little used

Kind
What the field holds. The settled view of a field, as a review, a consensus statement or a reference work gives it. Not one study.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

What this does not establish

Both reviews date from 2014, and neither reports a count of users.

Later work looked for

Crossref and Europe PMC, 2015 on, "sensory substitution devices": Kristjánsson et al. 2016 and Eagleman and Perrotta 2022 describe design work still under way; no survey found showing wider adoption.

Claim 36 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: The idea is decades older than this device.

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

Corrected

24 September 2026. Previously: “The idea is older than the hardware.” The earlier devices were hardware too, so "older than the hardware" could be read as saying the idea came before any device. The comparison is with the vOICe, described in 1992.

Claim 37 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Work from the 1960s onwards delivered images through an array of stimulators pressed against the skin of the back, and later through a grid on the tongue,

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

Claim 38 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: and reported that trained users came to describe objects as being out in front of them rather than as patterns on their skin,

Kind
Historical claim. A statement about the past that historical evidence can test.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

Known in the literature as distal attribution.

  • Supports

    Reading the World through the Skin and Ears: A New Perspective on Sensory Substitutionsection "A confirmation bias regarding performance and training"

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026 · Texts · Review of the field

    The source reads: they no longer report feeling the stimulation on their skin, where it occurs, but directly attribute the cause of the stimulation to a distant object

Claim 39 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: though that rests mostly on what users said.

Kind
What scholars argue. A report of what specialists argue, or where they disagree.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

Corrected

24 September 2026. Previously: “” Added. The review that carries the history says the reports are mostly subjective and untested, and the best-known of them came from a single philosophy student.

Claim 40 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: Training is long, the bandwidth is low compared with vision,

Kind
What the field holds. The settled view of a field, as a review, a consensus statement or a reference work gives it. Not one study.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

What this does not establish

How long depends on the device and the goal: about 8 hours for basic use of the tongue display, 73 on average in the reading study.

Later work looked for

Crossref, 2015 on, "sensory substitution devices": Kristjánsson et al. 2016 (abstract) again name bandwidth and training as constraints.

Claim 41 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: and the devices compete with a cane and with Braille, aids that are familiar and already proven.

Kind
What scholars argue. A report of what specialists argue, or where they disagree.
Review
Source checked. The cited passage was read, and it says this.

  • Supports

    Is There a Future for Sensory Substitution Outside Academic Laboratories?section 3, end

    Cited · Link answered, 19 October 2026 · Read in full, 24 September 2026 · Research in people · Review of the field

    The source reads: in the absence of a clear demonstration of their advantages relative to reliable, familiar and tested aids, such as the long-cane or Braille, the blind community may opt for the status quo

What this does not establish

An opinion article’s argument about why uptake is low, not a survey of users.

Corrected

24 September 2026. Previously: “Training is long, the bandwidth is low compared with vision, and the equipment competes with a cane and a phone that already solve many practical problems.” No source the audit could read names the phone as a competitor; the review that sets out the reasons for low uptake names the long cane and Braille.

Claim 42 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

Claim: A finding can be robust in the laboratory and marginal in a life, and the gap between those is not a failure of the science.

Kind
This page’s reading. A judgement the page makes from the evidence. Others read it differently.
Review
A judgement, not a fact. Reviewed for whether it is fairly put and follows from the checked claims. No source can confirm it.

The page’s own judgement, following from claims 36, 41 and 42: the laboratory results stand while the devices remain little used.

Claim 43 · checked 24 September 2026 · AI-assisted audit

What was read

  • Reading with Sounds: Sensory Substitution Selectively Activates the Visual Word Form Area in the BlindStriem-Amit, Cohen, Dehaene and Amedi, Neuron · Cell Press full text (open archive), cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(12)00763-5, read through the Wayback Machine capture of 9 August 2022; the publisher’s own site refuses this environmentRead in full, 24 September 2026 · Elsevier open archive; copyright; quoted brieflyMain text, figure legends and Experimental Procedures read. The Supplemental Experimental Procedures, which carry the training protocol and per-participant details, were not read.
  • Sensory substitution and the human-machine interfaceBach-y-Rita and Kercel, Trends in Cognitive Sciences · Europe PMC abstract, PMID 14643370; ScienceDirect abstract page via the Wayback Machine (2017)Abstract only, 24 September 2026 · Copyright; quoted brieflyPaywalled, with no open copy found through unpaywall, Semantic Scholar or the Wayback Machine. The body of the review, which carries its account of the tactile devices, was not read.
  • Reading the World through the Skin and Ears: A New Perspective on Sensory SubstitutionDeroy and Auvray, Frontiers in Psychology · Europe PMC full text, PMC3491585Read in full, 24 September 2026 · CC BYA theoretical review that argues a position: that sensory substitution is closer to reading than to perceiving. Its account of the earlier literature is used here, and its own position is attributed to it.
  • Is There a Future for Sensory Substitution Outside Academic Laboratories?Elli, Benetti and Collignon, Multisensory Research · Author copy of the published article, DIAL repository of UCLouvain (hdl.handle.net/2078.1/189357)Read in full, 24 September 2026 · Copyright; quoted brieflyAn opinion article. Some lines of the PDF extract with their spacing lost; excerpts are taken from lines that extract cleanly.
  • Task Selectivity as a Comprehensive Principle for Brain OrganizationAmedi, Hofstetter, Maidenbaum and Heimler, Trends in Cognitive Sciences · Europe PMC abstract, PMID 28385460Abstract only, 24 September 2026 · Copyright; quoted brieflyPaywalled, no open copy found. A short Spotlight piece; only its abstract was read.
  • Sensory substitution: closing the gap between basic research and widespread practical visual rehabilitationMaidenbaum, Abboud and Amedi, Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews · Europe PMC abstract, PMID 24275274Abstract only, 24 September 2026 · Copyright; quoted brieflyunpaywall lists a ScienceDirect PDF, which refuses this environment. Only the abstract was read.
  • Development of the Visual Word Form Area Requires Visual Experience: Evidence from Blind Braille ReadersKim, Kanjlia, Merabet and Bedny, Journal of Neuroscience · Full text of PMC5700429 from the PMC article page (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov), read 2026-09-24; E-utilities serves only the record, because the publisher does not allow the full text in XMLRead in full, 24 September 2026 · CC BY-NC-SA 4.0; quoted brieflyAbstract, Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion read.
  • Evidence from Blindness for a Cognitively Pluripotent CortexBedny, Trends in Cognitive Sciences · Europe PMC abstract, PMID 28821345Abstract only, 24 September 2026 · Copyright; quoted brieflyPaywalled, no open copy found. Only the abstract was read.