Category: Multisensory

My vision, my identity

smackenz/ / Art, Emotion, Haptic touch, Hearing, Multisensory, Philosophical Approach, Posts, Vision

The case of S.B. and later research have helped answer Molyneux’s question, posed to Locke, about whether a man born blind and now made to see can recognise a cube and a sphere by vision alone. Molyneux’s question was a pure thought experiment, aimed at exploring the structure of sensory knowledge. And over the years, it has been turned around and nuanced by both philosophers and scientists. (See our blog for the philosophical approach and the scientific approach.)

“We differ, blind and seeing, one from another, not in our senses, but in the use we make of them, in the imagination and courage with which we seek wisdom beyond the senses.” (Attributed to Helen Keller.)

But are people in general able to take up William Molyneux’s challenge and imagine life from a different sensory perspective? And if so, do they reach the same conclusion as Helen Keller – that true understanding goes beyond what the “blind and seeing” can or cannot do?

This time, I have invited Sidsel Størmer to share her lived experiences of how everyday beliefs have shaped her sense of self and confidence in relying on other senses rather than vision. And her journey towards reshaping her identity – both for herself and in the eyes of others. Sidsel holds a degree in Philosophy from the University of Cambridge, has worked as an analyst at The Government Pension Fund Global (also known as The Norwegian Oil Fund), and is currently pursuing a degree in Law at the University of Oslo. Her eyesight has been limited for as long as she remembers: No vision in her right eye and tunnel vision in her left, with less than 20% of the normal visual field.

I wasn’t blind

Growing up I was never blind. Yes, I had a white cane, and yes, early on I had braille lessons, but I was never blind. One of the first phrases I learnt – after my name – was to tell people that I did not see very well. I could see the sun, I could see pictures in art galleries, I could see my outfit in the morning when I got dressed. I could see enough to read in print – sometimes – and very slowly. To my parents and teachers, this made me “not blind”.

I soon learnt to embody this vision of myself. To me, being not blind was very important, because the people I saw around me and the people I admired were not blind. The people I had met who were blind seemed – to me – strange, scary and fundamentally different from me. As I grew up, I learnt that “the blind” were unable to work, dressed badly, and did not care about architecture, art, design or fashion – things which all mattered deeply to me. But: that was okay – I wasn’t blind.

This attitude carried me into adulthood. While I needed many adjustments during my undergraduate degree, I still took notes by hand, even while needing everything to be recorded for me. I colour coded my notes, as I had always done, in order to get as much as possible out of the pinprick of vision I had. I went clubbing, not knowing who I was going with or where we were. “Blind people don’t go clubbing” I thought, terrified, as I tried to find out where I was.

As I entered the workforce, my blindness caught up with me. I had landed a job in Oslo, where I had grown up, and was going to be living independently for the first time. I continued as I had always done, getting the most out of my vision and pretending like I could see more than I actually could.

Slowly, I came to realise how unsustainable this approach was. My psychologist diagnosed me with burnout two years into working full time. In the year and a half that followed, I slowly began to realise how little I could see and that I had to do something about how I navigated the world. I learnt to use a screenreader, and took time off from work to improve my slow braille and re-learn mobility and orientation skills. I started learning to echolocate, to use my fingers and ears to read instead of my eyes. This journey continues.

Now I choose both – I am blind, and I am sighted

I still love art, fashion and design. I am still deeply invested in the visual aspects of my life. But: I have also come to realise that my other senses sometimes work better than my eyes.

Yet, I have come to realise that I have the privilege of choice. I can choose which senses I want to use on different occasions. When using my recently acquired national gallery membership in London, my guide dog leads me through the halls, but I look at the paintings. I sit in the a nearby cafe reading The Times in print, before reading the braille sign on the bathroom door, I still like to know where I am and to be able to decide “ladies, not men”.

These actions are not contradictory to me. They embody the choice to use different senses for different things.

The thought of blindness is probably scarier to the sighted than it is to the blind. For me, this fear led me to live in a strange in-between state I was neither sighted nor compensating as well as my peers who are “fully blind”. While enjoying the privilege of using all my senses to the full, I wish I had learnt to do so sooner. To be proud of my blindness and my sight. To love art while reading with my fingers and orienting with my ears.

If you know a child who is blind and have some vision, teach them to be proud of their blindness and their sight. Teach them to read with their fingers, orient with the ears and see things that matter to them with their eyes. They will thank you.

See our blog for Activities; especially 91-93.

Some suggestions for further listening, reading, and watching:

How infants who are blind integrate tactile and auditory information

smackenz/ / Haptic touch, Hearing, Interoception, Movement, Multisensory, Posts, Proprioception, Spatial, Vestibular

The brain appears to integrate simultaneous information from all the senses from birth. (See our blog for Multisensory processing.) However, when the infant is fully sighted, vision most often takes the lead. So what happens when vision is impaired?

This time, I have invited Stefania Petri, Unit for Visually Impaired People (the UVIP Lab), the Italian Institute of Technology, to write about the integration of tactile and auditory cues in infants. Stefania is part of the MySpace project, which investigates how infants and children who are blind process audio-tactile information. The project is led by Dr Monica Gori, Head of the UVIP Lab, and Stefania contributes to the development of the early intervention system iReach.

For newborns, vision is not only about recognising faces and objects. Sight guides movement, play, and exploration. It allows infants to coordinate their actions, interact with caregivers, and gradually make sense of the world. When vision is missing or severely impaired, these basic experiences are disrupted from the very beginning of life. Indeed, infants with visual impairments often face delays in motor development, difficulties in social interaction, and challenges in learning how to explore space.

 

Why Touch and Sound Matter

Vision usually guides the other senses, helping infants build a coherent sense of space. For a sighted child, seeing a toy, hearing its sound, and touching it all come together to form a single, integrated experience. To construct this spatial map, infants who are blind must rely on other senses, such as touch and hearing.

Both senses are present from birth, and both provide spatial cues: touch gives direct, body-centered information, while hearing allows orientation toward events and objects at a distance. Understanding how these two senses work together in the absence of vision is crucial for developing strategies that support the growth of children who are blind.

 

Studying multisensory spatial perception

To explore this, we used a well-established paradigm – presenting auditory and tactile stimulations on the hands of the infants. We used a non-invasive device and collected behavioural data. The stimulation could be presented in a congruent way, with touch and sound on the same side of the body. Or, in an incongruent way, for example, touch on the right and sound on the left-hand side. By comparing the responses from infants who were blind and infants who were sighted, it became possible to explore how the two groups oriented and how quickly they reacted under different conditions.

This method may seem simple, but it addresses a fundamental question: when vision is absent, how do infants resolve conflicts between touch and sound? And do they still benefit when both cues point in the same direction?

 

What We Found

The results revealed clear differences between the two groups:

  • When touch and sound are in conflict — for example, when a vibration is felt on one hand, but the sound comes from the opposite side — infants who are blind are less likely than their sighted peers to orient toward the sound. This suggests that they rely more strongly on tactile cues when making spatial decisions.
  • When touch and sound are congruent, infants who are blind show evidence of multisensory integration. Specifically, their reaction times are faster when both cues are presented together compared to when they are presented separately. While sighted infants tend to integrate such cues more efficiently, infants who are blind nevertheless reveal that they can combine information across senses in a beneficial way.

(Top) Four experimental conditions: auditory stimulation alone, congruent audio-tactile stimulation, incongruent audio-tactile stimulation, and tactile stimulation alone. (Bottom) Results: (a) percentage of orienting responses directed toward the auditory stimulus and (b) reaction times to the stimulus. Blue bars represent sighted infants (S), and yellow bars infants who were severely visually impaired. Bold black lines indicate statistically significant differences between conditions.

Published with permission. Gori, M., Campus, C., Signorini, S., Rivara, E., & Bremner, A. J. (2021). Multisensory spatial perception in visually impaired infants. Current Biology, 31(22), 5093-5101.e5. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.09.011

These findings highlight an important message: even without vision, multisensory stimulation, particularly the integration of sound and touch—can enhance performance and support the gradual development of spatial and motor skills.

 

Practical Implications

These insights are not just theoretical. They guide the development of both habilitation and rehabilitation strategies and supportive technologies. For instance, play-based training sessions that combine vibration with sound in congruent way could strengthen early sensorimotor skills and might help infants who are blind practice reaching and moving toward objects.
One practical example inspired by this research is iReach. iReach is a small, wearable system made of two units, or tags that communicate via wireless. By attaching an anchor tag to a bracelet on the child’s wrist and another tag to a toy, the device allows infants to sense changes in vibration and sound as they approach the object: As the child moves closer to the toy, the bracelet changes its vibration and sound, giving intuitive feedback about distance.

An early prototype has been tested in a safe, playful setting with sighted children who were blindfolded. In one of the activities, the children had to place objects into a box positioned farther away, which contained the spatial reference tag.

a) iReach units: Tag (left); Anchor (right). b) Example of Tag positions: Anchor on infant’s body midline (left); external object (right). c) Example of use of iReach: The sound emitter and waveform icons represent the auditory and tactile stimuli, respectively. An increase in icons size indicates a corresponding increase in feedback intensity and frequency.

Published with permission: Gori, M., Petri, S., Riberto, M., & Setti, W. (2025). iReach: New multisensory technology for early intervention in infants with visual impairments. Frontiers in Psychology, 16(May) https://do.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1607528

When wearing the iReach bracelet, the children completed the task both faster and with more accurate movements. These early observations suggest that iReach can make exploration more intuitive and engaging for children who are blind.

Importantly, iReach is not a sensory substitution device, which often overload users with complex signals, it uses a child-friendly “language” of touch and sound to encourage active movement and exploration.

 

Conclusion

Infants who are blind grow up in a world where touch and hearing are the main senses that support their exploration of the world. Our studies show that they rely more on touch than on sound when the senses are in conflict, but they also benefit from integrating the two when the information is aligned. Recognizing how touch and sound work together, we can take important steps toward creating early interventions that respect children’s natural abilities and provide them with the best possible start in life.

See our blog for Activities; especially 79-81.

 

Some suggestions for further listening and watching:

Baby’s Fine and Gross Motor Skills

Baby Hearing Development

Beyond the Basic Senses

Get “Inside the Mind of a Baby”

Multisensory spatial perception in visually impaired infants

The Tactile System & Body Awareness In The First 3 Months

Vision Development: Newborn to 12 Months

What Your Baby Sees

Your baby’s sense of touch