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Seeing With Your Skin?

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the eyes-in-the-back-of-my-head dept.

Iddo Genuth writes to tell us that a researcher from Tel Aviv University is exploring the possibility that humans may be able to "see" via their skin. Professor Leonid Yaroslavsky hopes to utilize this possible technology to find solutions for the blind in addition to new types of image capture that might be able to work where conventional lenses fail. Unfortunately he has a long uphill battle ahead to convince others that his theories are possible. "The lenses currently used for optics-based imaging have many problems. They only work within a limited range of electromagnetic radiation. Relatively, these are still costly devices greatly limited by weight and field of view. The imaging Professor Yaroslavsky has in mind has no lenses and he believes the devices can be adapted to any kind of radiation and wavelength. They could essentially work with a 360-degree field of view and their imaging capability will only be determined by computer power rather than the laws of light diffraction."

32 of 138 comments (clear)

  1. My eyebrows are raised by BWJones · · Score: 4, Insightful

    As a vision scientist, my eyebrows are raised. I am highly skeptical for a variety of really, very good reasons...

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    1. Re:My eyebrows are raised by philspear · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yes, but does that increase or decrease what you're seeing with your forehead?

    2. Re:My eyebrows are raised by Psychotria · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I have read your comments before and can infer that you're very good in your field. You have pretty cool monitors anyway. My question is this: _Assuming_ that it is possible to "see" with skin, my guess would be that the 'resolution' would be the limiting factor. Obviously the skin can detect many wavelengths of light--I am having trouble jumping from this thought to the thought of the skin resolving those sensations into an image. You, rightly I think, say that you're skeptical, but you don't expand on any of your "very good reasons". I, for one, would love to hear some of these very good reasons (seriously).

    3. Re:My eyebrows are raised by MichaelSmith · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The article doesn't say what the resolution is supposed to be. Most of us could detect a light globe a short distance behind us. Thats a kind of vision. Our skin reacts to infrared photons.

      My mother is a teacher and used to work with children who were totally deaf and blind. I was amazed to see how aware they could be of their surroundings, and how much they could learn, though all of their communication was based on touch.

      --
      http://michaelsmith.id.au
    4. Re:My eyebrows are raised by Psychotria · · Score: 3, Insightful

      He said he was skeptical. All good scientists must be skeptical. It has nothing to do with having "faith in your fellow scientists".

    5. Re:My eyebrows are raised by BWJones · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Argh, too many windows open on the desktop and I clicked submit accidentally before elaborating.

      My first concern is that this little "story" or press release has been either re-released or duplicated on various sources verbatim for weeks if not months and I've yet to see anything in the scientific literature about it. Publishing scientific progress in the popular press before peer review typically means bogus science to me.

      There certainly are photoreceptive skin cells in "lower" vertebrates and invertebrates that do transduce photosensitive information. However, any experiments I've seen in the literature or in popular press (or even weird Soviet 1960s "dermo optical" experiments that have attempted to evaluate "skin vision" in humans have failed or not accounted for temperature or other confounds.

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    6. Re:My eyebrows are raised by MichaelSmith · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Obviously the skin can detect many wavelengths of light--I am having trouble jumping from this thought to the thought of the skin resolving those sensations into an image.

      Blind people seem to be able to do that with braile. Maybe a pattern of bumps can work in a similar way to a pattern of warm spots on the skin.

      --
      http://michaelsmith.id.au
    7. Re:My eyebrows are raised by philspear · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Actually it should: science doesn't work through faith. The word or untested hypotheses of even the most distinguished scientists isn't good for anything besides deciding what to test next. If Stephen Hawkings said Hawkin's radiation leaks out slightly faster from black holes than he thought and didn't offer proof, there would be plenty of people who would investigate I'm sure, but it wouldn't be accepted as more than conjecture, even though it's named after him.

    8. Re:My eyebrows are raised by OeLeWaPpErKe · · Score: 2, Informative

      It's nothing like echolocation. First of all, echolocation is active scanning, vision is passive scanning (nobody can detect you're looking at them, however you can tell if someone's using echolocation). Echolocation is dependant upon 1 or 2 sensors, while vision needs thousands (and prefers millions) of sensors.

      The calculations are explained in this link :

      arXivBlog

      The article makes several good points. After minimal practice you are able to identify the location of the sun blindfolded.

      A bit more practice and you can find people in closed rooms. Or behind you. This is trivially easy if the person behind you is really close, but with training you can increase the range quite a bit. It's impossibly to "feel" further than 2 or 3 meters or so, however, so while it beats our eyes in low light conditions at short ranges, it's not useful to see very far (the article explains this : it *is* possible to make skin vision work for very, very long distances, but the computational cost is off the scale).

      Not only do we have skin vision, the article claims, but we use it often. To avoid staring into the sun for example, but also to detect hot objects before touching them.

      Do an experiment. Heat up your stove. Hold your hand above it. It's quite clearly there isn't it ? Surely this must be the heated air rising, right ? (even though if you calculate how fast the heat transfers into your hand it doesn't quite make sense, and you don't actually feel air rise)

      So now try the same with a pot. Try to identify if it's hot or cold, by just holding your hand close to it (don't touch it). You should, again, with a little concentration, be able to do this with 100% accuracy. Nevertheless, with a vertical surface, there is hardly any heated air coming to your hand, yet you're able to identify the heat from about the same distance.

      We're not only able to see with our skin, but we see more than we see with our eyes. No amount of visual inspection with your eyes would tell you a cooking pot is hot or cold : the radiation that gives it away is outside of the spectrum of our eyes (this is due to the limitations of the lens "assembly"). Nevertheless clearly we can detect that radiation.

      The theory goes that this is how eyes developed. Skin is sensitive at very short range, and can actually form images of very close objects. But even with the huge brain humans have it only works for at best a few meters.

      However a dimpled piece of skin will see more, due to it's shape and will be able to focus further. Making that dimple moveable is an obvious next step.

      From there it's a short step to what amounts to a pinhole camera.

      Fill a pinhole camera that is round with a drop of water and you've got basic optics (that aren't very stable).

      Put a transparent layer of skin above the droplet of water and you have reptile eyes, much, much more stable than the pinhole kind and not nearly as prone to infection.

      Let the skin immediately above the hole in the skin grow a little bit and you've got mammal eyes. Add a muscle within that loose hanging skin and you've got human eyes.

    9. Re:My eyebrows are raised by Psychotria · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I agree 100%; it's exactly what I was saying. You have to be skeptical. Reputation goes a long way, but it would be foolhardy to accept something that someone says based on their reputation -- no matter how good their reputation is. Being skeptical is part of the bargain and necessary. "Necessary" is probably too light a word. Without skepticism everything falls apart.

    10. Re:My eyebrows are raised by Original+Replica · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I am having trouble jumping from this thought to the thought of the skin resolving those sensations into an image.

      As I understand it, that's more of a matter of the brain rewiring itself to interpret the signals coming from that patch of skin differently than any limitation of the nerves in the skin itself. There is an interesting account of what this is like in an old Wired article around page 5 the author experiences a rather sudden shift as his brain learns to interpret visual signals differently.

      --
      We are all just people.
    11. Re:My eyebrows are raised by J+Story · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Further, I would say that being open to criticism and being able to accept that, move on and improve (based on the criticism) separates the mediocre from the brilliant. It doesn't matter how much knowledge you have. We all make mistakes and we all overlook things. We all say silly things now and again.

      This is what makes the "science" of Global Warming so frustrating. Criticism or scepticism is anathema, and we hear the constant chant that "the debate is over". Real science thrives on argument and experiments, and not on ad hominem attacks.

    12. Re:My eyebrows are raised by BungaDunga · · Score: 2, Informative

      They've actually done that. Big mechanical bunch of pins or something in the back of a chair. A camera that makes each pin act as a pixel and poke into the subject's back. Terribly unwieldy, but it does give people an image in their mind's eye.

    13. Re:My eyebrows are raised by Psychotria · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Radiant heat and reflection may also play a role. The list goes on. All this stuff needs to be eliminated or accounted for when you design your experiment. I am not disagreeing with you btw... just interested :-)

    14. Re:My eyebrows are raised by philspear · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well, that's because it's no longer an academic question. SOME of the skepticism is "economically motivated" and therefore impossible to satisfy. There's also the factor of "if it's right, then waiting until it's a fact will be too late." As someone who won't lose money directly from cutting our use of fossil fuels, of course I'm going to say we should cut them now and potentially have done it for nothing than not cut them now and wish we had.

      The science of global warming is now only used as a bat in the debate because there are larger issues.

    15. Re:My eyebrows are raised by Psychotria · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I cannot believe I am replying to this.

      a) Where did I say that I have an "education"?
      b) Why do you think that being sceptical is bad?
      c) If you think that by typing "skeptical" (mirroring the OP) was bad, then you miss the point.
      d) What did I say that sounded "elitist"?
      e) Where did I imply that all good scientists must think like me? (Apart from adhering to basic principles)

  2. Hope springs eternal by overshoot · · Score: 2, Funny
    I remember reports like this from the 60s.

    Of course, like any memories from the 60s ...

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    Lacking <sarcasm> tags, /. substitutes moderation as "Troll."
    1. Re:Hope springs eternal by Emperor+Zombie · · Score: 2, Funny

      Long time no see! Let's go burn one man.

      I know you feel like celebrating, but that's no excuse to go around burning people.

      --
      I'm so excited I just made water in my pantaloons!
  3. Done before, using different sensory organ by glueball · · Score: 4, Informative

    Dr. Paul Bach-y-Rita who was at UW Madison has done something with vision being projected via electrical stimulation on the tongue. It is called sensory substitution.

    I've seen it first hand. It works.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_substitution

    1. Re:Done before, using different sensory organ by lcampagn · · Score: 2, Informative

      Sensory substitution is old (but cool) news, but from TFA it looks like this guy is claiming some inherent ability of the skin to detect light, rather than delivering an image-driven stimulus to the skin. If this is the case, then he's got a lot of work to do. Like stop running simulations and start checking premises.

    2. Re:Done before, using different sensory organ by Macman408 · · Score: 2, Informative

      ...and a project (also from the UW) involving several guys I know, called Visual Taste does that as well. There are pictures and videos, if the average slashdot reader can be troubled to follow the link...

  4. Sir, Put Your Shirt Back On. by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 4, Funny

    "I'm just having a look around."

    Seriously, though:

    These theories may lead to future devices with practical applications. He says that such devices will end up having distinct advantages over conventional optics-based imaging. He expects these devices to have special sensors for detecting radiation at sea and in airports to indentify terrorist threats, innovative night vision devices or near-weightless mechanisms to steer spaceships in space.

    Did anybody else read this, "Homeland Security grants, DARPA grants, or NASA grants would all be just fine."

    --
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  5. Ummm it's called a sunburn by gregbot9000 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Seriously anyone who has had a 2nd degree sunburn will tell you the burns sensitivity to light is amazing. I had a redhead friend who had a burn and he could tell when light was on his back while walking under trees, and even if you were passing your arm over it.

    That's probably how the eyes started, as a sensitive patch of skin. Sight would be a different interpretation of pain, with color being different degrees of pain.

    1. Re:Ummm it's called a sunburn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      More likely it would have been felt as something like heat, rather than pain. Intensity (temperature?) maps to brightness, not color. Color probably didn't come until something more eye-like had evolved - you wouldn't get color sensitivity from skin, only intensity/temperature. AFAIK color isn't as useful until after you have certain other things - light sensitivity first, to know if something's there. Then directionality, to know where. Then resolution, to know what is is. Color is an additional refinement of what. Recall that natural selection works in tiny tiny steps, and each step must be beneficial enough on its own to spread through the population.

  6. Obvious in retrospect by David+Gerard · · Score: 4, Funny

    The next stage after talking out your ass.

    --
    http://rocknerd.co.uk
  7. Re:This was a "psychic" trick in the 70s. by Psychotria · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Back then it was called "demo-optical perception."

    Citation needed. Oh wait.

  8. Follow the money. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If you would like to see with your wallet, here is the donation page. It's a press release of an organization that wants money. Does someone at Slashdot take money to pretend that these Tel Aviv University press releases are stories?

    1. Re:Follow the money. by eggnoglatte · · Score: 2, Informative

      WTF? Tel Aviv University is a very decent research institute that has made many important contributions to science. No, I am not and have never been affiliated with them, but the page you are referring to is obviously that of an alumni organization. And yes, they do raise money for the university, that is what alumni organizations do.

      As for Yaroslavsky (the prof working on this "seeing skin" project), I know neither him nor this project (at least not more than the press release states), but his publication list shows that he regularly publishes in top journals such as Applied Optics, Optics Express, and Optics Letters. Clearly he knows a thing or two about light.

      http://www.eng.tau.ac.il/~yaro/RecentPublications/index.html

  9. Sorry, misspelling. by EWAdams · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Meant to write "dermo-optical perception." As for citations, see Carl Sagan or Martin Gardner.

    --
    I piss off bigots.
  10. Cognitive Science: This sounds familiar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I recall a discussion about this in a cognitive science class I took about 3 years ago. Apparently, somebody developed an aparatus that was hooked to a person's back and used pins to provide a monochrome image of what a camera on the person's head was displaying. The interesting part was that they discovered that the visual part of the brain ended up being used to process the images. Eventually the person could see...sort of.

    Of course, this kind of trick won't work at all if the person is blind because of a brain problem rather than an eye problem. People who lose their sight overly early on in life will not necessarily develop their visual cortex enough for this type of technology to work. However, people who lose their eyes as adults or teens due to accidents will be fine.

  11. Can we mark this "Sudden Outbreak of Common Sense? by gravis777 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Bear with me, I am thinking out loud here

    Very interesting theory. So, we all know that what we see, hear, whatever, is caused by different wavelengths. So, why is it that we can only see in one wavelength spectrum and hear in another? Hmmm. So, if there is a way to slightly shift those wavelengths that another sensory in the body can understand, I doubt you could "see", but, with proper training, I guess it would be possible to train that sense to make sense (no pun intended) of the data.

    Then again, I may be totally forgetting something, and this doesn't make any sense at all and I could just be spouting off BS.

    However, if this is possible, then this could be a different way of recording data from the world around us. I understand how the eye works, and I understand how a camera works. But, if we use something different than optics to record wavelengths in the visual spectrum, and use a computer program to interperate that data into something we could see.... Hmmm, its a longshot, but it sounds highly fascinating to me.

  12. That will come in handy ... by PPH · · Score: 3, Funny

    ... as an excuse when I'm staring at some gal's tits while talking to her. Hey, they were staring at me first!

    --
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