The Psychology of Sound Vision. Svetlana Lebedeva told how people are taught a new way of perceiving
“Darkness is also beautiful - when light is hidden in it” (c)
Sergey Lukyanenko “Boy and Darkness”
Everyone can learn an unfamiliar language, whether it be a foreign, sign or any programming language. Someone will master it for several months, someone will need half life. But only a professional linguist can learn a new language and then create a working methodology for teaching other people to it. For this, even the most talented polyglot will need years of practice and painstaking work.
Our today's heroine did this in two months.
')
Svetlana Lebedeva is a methodologist and researcher at the vOICe vision team, one of the authors and developers of Sound Vision.
The language that she has learned and which she is teaching others is not a foreign language, and, in general, is not quite a language. But her students call him that way and often compare with Braille.
Svetlana teaches to use Sound Vision - a unique technology of sensory substitution, which allows you to "see" the surrounding space through hearing. The Moscow vOICe vision development team has created a device that translates a camera-captured image into an audio track using a specific algorithm.
A person who has studied and remembered the logic of this algorithm can see the space around him, being completely blind. To do this, he will only need vOICe vision glasses.
The algorithm itself was invented by the Dutch inventor Peter Meijer, but the teaching methods never existed before. The algorithm was known only to a narrow circle of specialists interested in sensory replacement technologies.
One of them turned out to be Moscow engineer Igor Trapeznikov, who for many years tried to solve the problem of spatial orientation for blind people. Now he has assembled a team of enthusiasts, with whom he developed a device that can convert the image from an external camera into sound using the Peter Meyer algorithm. This is how vOICe vision Sound Vision glasses came about.
But how to teach a person to understand the synthetic algorithm of perception, known only to a narrow handful of specialists? After all, it is akin to learning another language. The task was complicated by the fact that all users of vOICe vision are blind people, in whose training it is necessary to apply special educational approaches. Igor’s team urgently needed a methodologist who could, given all the circumstances, develop a training program as soon as possible.
But to do this, you need extensive knowledge of the psychology of perception and huge creativity. The task seems incredibly costly in terms of time and resources, and simply unbearable for a small startup team. But sincere enthusiasm, which is embraced by many inventors and discoverers, often breeds luck.
For the vOICe vision team, Svetlana Lebedeva, a young graduate of the third medical department (MGMSU), specializing in clinical psychology, became such a success. For two months, she studied the Peter Meyer algorithm and developed an author's methodology for teaching Sound Vision.
To support the Sound Vision project, we met with Svetlana and talked about her work.
- Hello, Sveta! Tell me, how many people have you already learned to use vOICe vision?
- Now we have six users, each of which owns Sound Vision to varying degrees. Someone with the help of vOICe wins the competition, someone - is just starting to develop this skill in himself, and someone - is not eager to win, but just uses vOICe in his daily life - travels, goes to work.
Now the number of students is increasing, and Daria Shibankova helps me to conduct classes - she is also a clinical psychologist and knows how to build very confidential contact with people. I am pleased to perceive our team as a family, as people united by a desire to find like-minded people and improve the world around them - for myself and others.
- I.e. six people have mastered vOICe vision and can confirm the effectiveness of the technology and your training methodology?
- To varying degrees.
- How did you develop it? What did you rely on when I created the training course?
- On knowledge of the psychology of perception and psychophysics. On the knowledge that I learned from textbooks and from teachers when I was in high school, as well as on my own experience in teaching and clinical practice.
- You relied solely on theory?
- And what was it to rely on when no one in the world knows how to teach Sound Vision? Experiments with perception have existed for a long time, as well as the study of the mechanisms of sensory substitution. The idea of translating the image into sound also excited many minds. These were fundamental studies or art installations - the curves of Gilbert and the ANS synthesizer, for example, had very bizarre sounds, no one took them seriously. The sounds of Peter Meyer's algorithm, of course, are also good - like cartoon shooting from space blasters or something like futuristic ... But thanks to a well-thought-out training system, they seem quite understandable and logical.
There have been cautious attempts before, but never in the world was it a full-fledged training course, accessible not only to subjects in the framework of research, but also to ordinary people who simply want to improve the quality of their life. In this sense, we, the vOICe vision team, were the first to start educating people on a systematic basis, and now our students can not only navigate and distinguish much of what is ignored by modern assistive devices ... They can perceive the world in a completely different way! This idea excites, especially at the moment when you understand that Sound Vision works in the same way as perception by any other sense organ given to a person by nature.
- It turns out that Sound Vision is a kind of surrogate way of perceiving?
- Artificial. Invented and created by man. Not really sight, rather intuition - you just have an image in your head, an assumption of the shape, location of the object ... You can learn Sound Vision just like learning to use other methods of perception - vision, hearing, smell, touch. And this means the training methodology must be built exactly in the same biological sequence as it happens in nature.
- Is this the main secret of the technique? Have you already patented it somewhere?
- She still has many secrets - nevertheless, her experience in working with children also affects her teaching experience. It would be great to patent a technique, but I don’t know how. I have groundwork for a scientific article that reflects the most significant theses of the methodology, training, and perception, again. I would really like to tell this story from the point of view of a clinical psychologist. Carry out neuropsychological studies ...
- It turns out that this experience can be somehow used in scientific work?
- Ironically, I am currently writing a dissertation on a very similar topic - frequency analysis of speech. In the vOICe vision team, I study how a person perceives a computer speech algorithm, and my PhD thesis is about how a computer perceives human speech. Both that and another - a story about sounds and their interpretation.
“And how do you learn to navigate these sounds of your students?” What is included in the course of study?
- The course lasts from one and a half to three months, depending on how often the student is engaged. The optimal load is two lessons per week with a trainer, as well as independent lessons at home. When training, it is important not to forget about it and train every day. The theory on our online platform and individually selected homework are given to help. The trainer monitors the work during the week and adjusts the training program depending on the successes and difficulties faced by the student of sound vision, since the technique can be flexible, despite its structured structure. We also try to maximize the use of the surrounding space - it is always nice to recognize familiar objects in a new way.
- What needs to be done to start studying? Have to get your vOICe vision device from you?
- Usually a person signs up for a free course “Acquaintance with Sound Vision” on our online platform, passes it and learns that vOICe sound suits him, and he can even navigate it. After that, he already buys glasses from us and begins training with a coach. And it happens the other way around - and after the doubts are behind and the contract is signed, the coach leads the person to the platform. This is a real virtual tutorial to learn the basics! While a person is taking courses and passing tests, points go to him in the mail. It usually takes two weeks.
But a person begins to engage in glasses even before he gets his own copy - the vOICe vision Training Center has all the necessary equipment. And when his own glasses are in the hands of our student, he brings them home to finally find out how his favorite cup sounds.
- As you know, in order to teach something, you need to at least understand this yourself. How did you learn how to use your vOICe vision glasses?
- I got acquainted with the principles of transcoding the image into sound, and then just put on my glasses. A couple of experiments with the environment - and I realized how they work. Then I studied the Peter Meyer algorithm using the application on my phone. Often I use it to hear how this or that object sounds. And I’m so used to it that wherever I look now, I can easily imagine how the picture in front of my eyes will sound in the language of Sound Vision. Such a “phantom vOICe” is now always with me, even if I don’t have glasses and a smartphone.
- It turns out that you are able to “see” with Sound Vision without a vOICe vision device?
- Rather, instantly translate into the sound algorithm of Peter Meyer what my eyes see. On the one hand, I fully studied this algorithm, and on the other, I now feel how it will sound this or that picture in front of me.
- A very thorough approach! Since you are so serious about work, you probably often face challenges and challenges. Tell me, what's the hardest thing for you?
- Doubts. The hardest thing is to fight them and win. For me and my students, the most difficult moment is the one at which we take the first step - for this we need to overcome a large number of internal beliefs, fears ... But it is the destiny of all discoverers to face this and move on.
“Perhaps you just need to believe ...”
- I myself do not always believe. But the secret is to do contrary to doubts, to go ahead and further. Say to yourself: “Okay, this adventure can end in disappointment. Or maybe not. Who knows? At least I will have something to remember! ” If you follow the disappointment, then you can break down and lose the fruits of all your efforts.
“So you just have to be confident?”
“Yes, but it's not always easy.” It all depends on the person and often on his environment. The opinions of our loved ones, relatives, friends, and work colleagues greatly influence all of us. This is especially true for people with disabilities, whose social circle
limited. It happens that they are in a co-dependent relationship with their relatives - any change in their life affects the whole family system and it tries to keep them. Such blind people feel distrust of people who are not included in their immediate circle, they feel helpless and at the same time unwilling to change anything. To become more independent and proactive, they would have to abandon the internal rules of their family and their social group, and this can be too difficult.
- Sounds depressing. Is it so bad?
- Maybe, but we fight. Not only me and my blind students, but the whole society. I see here a clash of worldviews in which we prevail. Increasingly, people are doing something that no one has done before, becoming bolder. A lot of interesting things are happening in the world, and we are becoming more open to everything new. Thanks to the Internet and the ability to communicate with people from a distance, all categories of small social groups (including people with disabilities) become more active and visible. And that is wonderful. Because it gives a new look at what people can be and how differently they can see our one common world.
“Then you are the one who creates this new outlook on things.” By the way, what does Peter Meyer think of this?
- He is pleasantly surprised by what the vOICe vision team does. Nobody in the world before us tried to build a teaching technique, nobody tried to create a device based on the Meyer algorithm, and moreover, no one taught this algorithm to a whole group of blind people. We are first. And we just started.
- Great start! You know, Stephen King wrote in one of his books: "The only thing that matters is how much light you emit on the path of life." You have it in abundance. And your Light gives hopeless people doomed to darkness. Bright, almost tangible and so real.
Interviewed by Ivan Chimbulatov
Sergey Lukyanenko “Boy and Darkness”
Everyone can learn an unfamiliar language, whether it be a foreign, sign or any programming language. Someone will master it for several months, someone will need half life. But only a professional linguist can learn a new language and then create a working methodology for teaching other people to it. For this, even the most talented polyglot will need years of practice and painstaking work.
Our today's heroine did this in two months.
')
Svetlana Lebedeva is a methodologist and researcher at the vOICe vision team, one of the authors and developers of Sound Vision.
The language that she has learned and which she is teaching others is not a foreign language, and, in general, is not quite a language. But her students call him that way and often compare with Braille.
Svetlana teaches to use Sound Vision - a unique technology of sensory substitution, which allows you to "see" the surrounding space through hearing. The Moscow vOICe vision development team has created a device that translates a camera-captured image into an audio track using a specific algorithm.
A person who has studied and remembered the logic of this algorithm can see the space around him, being completely blind. To do this, he will only need vOICe vision glasses.
The algorithm itself was invented by the Dutch inventor Peter Meijer, but the teaching methods never existed before. The algorithm was known only to a narrow circle of specialists interested in sensory replacement technologies.
One of them turned out to be Moscow engineer Igor Trapeznikov, who for many years tried to solve the problem of spatial orientation for blind people. Now he has assembled a team of enthusiasts, with whom he developed a device that can convert the image from an external camera into sound using the Peter Meyer algorithm. This is how vOICe vision Sound Vision glasses came about.
But how to teach a person to understand the synthetic algorithm of perception, known only to a narrow handful of specialists? After all, it is akin to learning another language. The task was complicated by the fact that all users of vOICe vision are blind people, in whose training it is necessary to apply special educational approaches. Igor’s team urgently needed a methodologist who could, given all the circumstances, develop a training program as soon as possible.
But to do this, you need extensive knowledge of the psychology of perception and huge creativity. The task seems incredibly costly in terms of time and resources, and simply unbearable for a small startup team. But sincere enthusiasm, which is embraced by many inventors and discoverers, often breeds luck.
For the vOICe vision team, Svetlana Lebedeva, a young graduate of the third medical department (MGMSU), specializing in clinical psychology, became such a success. For two months, she studied the Peter Meyer algorithm and developed an author's methodology for teaching Sound Vision.
To support the Sound Vision project, we met with Svetlana and talked about her work.
- Hello, Sveta! Tell me, how many people have you already learned to use vOICe vision?
- Now we have six users, each of which owns Sound Vision to varying degrees. Someone with the help of vOICe wins the competition, someone - is just starting to develop this skill in himself, and someone - is not eager to win, but just uses vOICe in his daily life - travels, goes to work.
Now the number of students is increasing, and Daria Shibankova helps me to conduct classes - she is also a clinical psychologist and knows how to build very confidential contact with people. I am pleased to perceive our team as a family, as people united by a desire to find like-minded people and improve the world around them - for myself and others.
- I.e. six people have mastered vOICe vision and can confirm the effectiveness of the technology and your training methodology?
- To varying degrees.
- How did you develop it? What did you rely on when I created the training course?
- On knowledge of the psychology of perception and psychophysics. On the knowledge that I learned from textbooks and from teachers when I was in high school, as well as on my own experience in teaching and clinical practice.
- You relied solely on theory?
- And what was it to rely on when no one in the world knows how to teach Sound Vision? Experiments with perception have existed for a long time, as well as the study of the mechanisms of sensory substitution. The idea of translating the image into sound also excited many minds. These were fundamental studies or art installations - the curves of Gilbert and the ANS synthesizer, for example, had very bizarre sounds, no one took them seriously. The sounds of Peter Meyer's algorithm, of course, are also good - like cartoon shooting from space blasters or something like futuristic ... But thanks to a well-thought-out training system, they seem quite understandable and logical.
There have been cautious attempts before, but never in the world was it a full-fledged training course, accessible not only to subjects in the framework of research, but also to ordinary people who simply want to improve the quality of their life. In this sense, we, the vOICe vision team, were the first to start educating people on a systematic basis, and now our students can not only navigate and distinguish much of what is ignored by modern assistive devices ... They can perceive the world in a completely different way! This idea excites, especially at the moment when you understand that Sound Vision works in the same way as perception by any other sense organ given to a person by nature.
- It turns out that Sound Vision is a kind of surrogate way of perceiving?
- Artificial. Invented and created by man. Not really sight, rather intuition - you just have an image in your head, an assumption of the shape, location of the object ... You can learn Sound Vision just like learning to use other methods of perception - vision, hearing, smell, touch. And this means the training methodology must be built exactly in the same biological sequence as it happens in nature.
- Is this the main secret of the technique? Have you already patented it somewhere?
- She still has many secrets - nevertheless, her experience in working with children also affects her teaching experience. It would be great to patent a technique, but I don’t know how. I have groundwork for a scientific article that reflects the most significant theses of the methodology, training, and perception, again. I would really like to tell this story from the point of view of a clinical psychologist. Carry out neuropsychological studies ...
- It turns out that this experience can be somehow used in scientific work?
- Ironically, I am currently writing a dissertation on a very similar topic - frequency analysis of speech. In the vOICe vision team, I study how a person perceives a computer speech algorithm, and my PhD thesis is about how a computer perceives human speech. Both that and another - a story about sounds and their interpretation.
“And how do you learn to navigate these sounds of your students?” What is included in the course of study?
- The course lasts from one and a half to three months, depending on how often the student is engaged. The optimal load is two lessons per week with a trainer, as well as independent lessons at home. When training, it is important not to forget about it and train every day. The theory on our online platform and individually selected homework are given to help. The trainer monitors the work during the week and adjusts the training program depending on the successes and difficulties faced by the student of sound vision, since the technique can be flexible, despite its structured structure. We also try to maximize the use of the surrounding space - it is always nice to recognize familiar objects in a new way.
- What needs to be done to start studying? Have to get your vOICe vision device from you?
- Usually a person signs up for a free course “Acquaintance with Sound Vision” on our online platform, passes it and learns that vOICe sound suits him, and he can even navigate it. After that, he already buys glasses from us and begins training with a coach. And it happens the other way around - and after the doubts are behind and the contract is signed, the coach leads the person to the platform. This is a real virtual tutorial to learn the basics! While a person is taking courses and passing tests, points go to him in the mail. It usually takes two weeks.
But a person begins to engage in glasses even before he gets his own copy - the vOICe vision Training Center has all the necessary equipment. And when his own glasses are in the hands of our student, he brings them home to finally find out how his favorite cup sounds.
- As you know, in order to teach something, you need to at least understand this yourself. How did you learn how to use your vOICe vision glasses?
- I got acquainted with the principles of transcoding the image into sound, and then just put on my glasses. A couple of experiments with the environment - and I realized how they work. Then I studied the Peter Meyer algorithm using the application on my phone. Often I use it to hear how this or that object sounds. And I’m so used to it that wherever I look now, I can easily imagine how the picture in front of my eyes will sound in the language of Sound Vision. Such a “phantom vOICe” is now always with me, even if I don’t have glasses and a smartphone.
- It turns out that you are able to “see” with Sound Vision without a vOICe vision device?
- Rather, instantly translate into the sound algorithm of Peter Meyer what my eyes see. On the one hand, I fully studied this algorithm, and on the other, I now feel how it will sound this or that picture in front of me.
- A very thorough approach! Since you are so serious about work, you probably often face challenges and challenges. Tell me, what's the hardest thing for you?
- Doubts. The hardest thing is to fight them and win. For me and my students, the most difficult moment is the one at which we take the first step - for this we need to overcome a large number of internal beliefs, fears ... But it is the destiny of all discoverers to face this and move on.
“Perhaps you just need to believe ...”
- I myself do not always believe. But the secret is to do contrary to doubts, to go ahead and further. Say to yourself: “Okay, this adventure can end in disappointment. Or maybe not. Who knows? At least I will have something to remember! ” If you follow the disappointment, then you can break down and lose the fruits of all your efforts.
“So you just have to be confident?”
“Yes, but it's not always easy.” It all depends on the person and often on his environment. The opinions of our loved ones, relatives, friends, and work colleagues greatly influence all of us. This is especially true for people with disabilities, whose social circle
limited. It happens that they are in a co-dependent relationship with their relatives - any change in their life affects the whole family system and it tries to keep them. Such blind people feel distrust of people who are not included in their immediate circle, they feel helpless and at the same time unwilling to change anything. To become more independent and proactive, they would have to abandon the internal rules of their family and their social group, and this can be too difficult.
- Sounds depressing. Is it so bad?
- Maybe, but we fight. Not only me and my blind students, but the whole society. I see here a clash of worldviews in which we prevail. Increasingly, people are doing something that no one has done before, becoming bolder. A lot of interesting things are happening in the world, and we are becoming more open to everything new. Thanks to the Internet and the ability to communicate with people from a distance, all categories of small social groups (including people with disabilities) become more active and visible. And that is wonderful. Because it gives a new look at what people can be and how differently they can see our one common world.
“Then you are the one who creates this new outlook on things.” By the way, what does Peter Meyer think of this?
- He is pleasantly surprised by what the vOICe vision team does. Nobody in the world before us tried to build a teaching technique, nobody tried to create a device based on the Meyer algorithm, and moreover, no one taught this algorithm to a whole group of blind people. We are first. And we just started.
- Great start! You know, Stephen King wrote in one of his books: "The only thing that matters is how much light you emit on the path of life." You have it in abundance. And your Light gives hopeless people doomed to darkness. Bright, almost tangible and so real.
Interviewed by Ivan Chimbulatov
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/461755/
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