• lordnikon@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    This made me thing of another question if someone was born deaf but if you attached a device that would have a mic with an amplifier and a transducer that touched the skin so they could feel the vibration frequency changes based on sound. Could they develop a new way of hearing sounds? Could they learn to speak?

    • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 day ago

      Deaf people already may learn to speak without that through speech therapy, although for most it’s not their preferred method of communication.

      I don’t know how it’s changed in the modern day because the people I know who went through it as kids did it like 30 years ago, but it used to be common to hold a balloon against the throat while speaking to feel the different sounds you’re making.

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 day ago

      Vibration receptors can’t distinguish frequencies well enough. Cochlear implants exist, though, and work by directly exciting the auditory nerve.

      • lordnikon@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Yeah I know it doesn’t have the resolution of ear drums and the implant is going to better but I wonder if someone can adapt to that lower resolution

        • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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          1 day ago

          Almost certainly not. Touch is really just geared to detecting the presence or absence of vibration. I’d be surprised if you could get a double digit set of waveforms which could be reliably distinguished, let alone the endless combinations that make up normal hearing.