A new breakthrough has discovered hearing aids may help with human echolocation

RESEARCHERS believe they have found a way to give the visually impaired the ability to use reflected sound waves to locate objects in physical space.

Charlie Cox for DAREDEVIL

IN Marvel’s Daredevil, the blinded superhero possesses the ability to use reflected sound waves to locate objects in physical space.

This process known as echolocation and is an actual phenomenon that is commonly used by bats.

For a number of years, researchers have been exploring the possibility of human echolocation, but the results have never been conclusive.

Now, a team of researchers from the University of Southampton believes they have made a breakthrough.

Audiologist Dan Rowan said his team found a human’s ability to use sound to navigate the world around them is only possible with two fully functional and youthful ears.

For the study, participants were placed into an empty room known as a Virtual Acoustic Space — a room designed to prevent sound reflecting back to its source.

Rather than using physical items, researchers opted for using recordings to mimic the object in its various experimental locations.

Echolocation is also used by bats.

This removed the ability for subjects to feel the circulation of air in the room, which can unconsciously help them locate the object.

“We just got rid of all variables other than the sound cues themselves,” he told Motherboard.

Subjects were played the recordings through specialised headphones that were used to change an aspect of the sound at will.

This was used to simulate hearing problems such as single-sided deafness and partial hearing loss.

Mr Rowan said researchers discovered that subjects could only reliably pinpoint objects when high-frequency sounds could be clearly heard in both ears.

The problem here is that high-frequency hearing is often one of the first components to fade as people age.

“Statistically, it’s only a matter of time before most people have some hearing impairment,” he said.

“Blind people are effectively blind and hearing-impaired people in waiting.”

Mr Rowan said the discovery could be instrumental in redesigning hearing aids, so those with hearing problems or the elderly could maximise their spatial awareness.

“Our approach is to use this research to design hearing devices that do the sorts of stuff that are difficult for [humans] to do,” he said.