Following an excellent post on cochlear implants by Teresa Blankmeyer Burke over at Feminist Philosophers is a comment pointing the reader to this interview, which may be of interest to NewAPPS readers. Of particular interest is William Mager's attempt to describe his experience of sound with the new implants. Here are a few key passages:
“It’s not sound. It’s beeping. But It doesn’t feel like sound. It feels like some kind of electronic trigger is going on in your brain.” (at around 4:27)
And then, when William is asked to recognize a particular sound, which happens to be church bells sounding the time, he says:
“Ok what I am hearing is a period of silence and then I hear a loud pulse sound and then its followed by another silence and then another loud pulse. It’s kind of rhythmic. I have no idea what that could be.” (at around 7:15)
He tries to explain the phenomena:
“A lot of people will say for the first few months, the sensations are like pulses. And then in about two or three months it could be that what you’re hearing is equivalent normal sounds that you can hear.” (at around 8:30)
It would be great to hear other such reports of these phenomena. If readers of NewAPPS know of any such reports, please list them in the comments.
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