%0 Journal Article
%T Ecolocaci¨®n humana: Revisi¨®n hist¨®rica de un fen¨®meno particular - Primera parte
%A Arias
%A Claudia
%A H¨ąg
%A Mercedes Ximena
%A Bermejo
%A Fernando
%A Venturelli
%A Nicol¨˘s
%A Rabinovich
%A Diana
%J Interdisciplinaria
%D 2010
%I Scientific Electronic Library Online
%X echolocation is a genuinely human though greatly unexploited ability that is closely related to the localization of reflected sounds. it is part of the scarcely studied and promising field of the percept-cognitive processes involved in everyday audition of non-verbal sounds. it implies self-producing sounds (original or direct signal) with the specific purpose of obtaining auditory information (reflected signal) to detect, locate and recognize unseen objects. this ability turns out to be crucial to the blind person's independent mobility, an aspect that is severely affected by blindness. we present an historical revision of the main studies that have been carried out on this particular phenomenon, describing the paradigm changes that occurred in scientific history. the historical conceptualizations of echolocation are specially revealing: while it was initially considered a paranormal phenomenon, a kind of sixth sense, now it is treated as an ability that could be unconsciously used by most of us. in this first part of this paper we present relevant theoretical aspects and the studies carried out during two of the three periods this historical revision has been divided in: (a) first approaches (1700 - 1935) and (b) scientific study of human echolocation (decades from 40s to 80s). the third period, named recent studies, is developed in the second part of this article. the questions that were initially asked were concerned the explanation of which of the sense organs was involved and which sensory stimulation was the necessary and sufficient condition for this ability. some researchers and many blind persons were inclined to look for the answer in the sense of touch, from stimuli such as differences in pressure, air currents or differences in temperature upon the skin of the face; this originated the name of facial vision with which echolocation is also known. during the 40s a vast and rigorous research program was put forward in order to elucidate the sensory basis o
%K human echolocation
%K facial vision
%K repetition pitch
%K precedence effect.
%U http://www.scielo.org.ar/scielo.php?script=sci_abstract&pid=S1668-70272010000200009&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en