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Updated: Jun 29, 2025

Development of an Audio-based Virtual Gaming Environment to Assist with Navigation Skills in the Blind
Published on: March 27, 2013
Disambiguating vision with sound
Monica Gori1, David Burr2, Claudio Campus1
1UVIP - Unit for visually impaired people, Italian Institute of Technology, Genoa 16152, Italy.
Abstract:
An important task for the visual system is to identify and segregate objects from background. Figure-ground illusions, such as Edgar Rubin's bistable 'vase-faces illusion'1, make the point clearly: we see either a central vase or lateral faces, alternating spontaneously, but never both images simultaneously. The border is perceptually assigned to either faces or vase, which become figure, the other shapeless background2. The stochastic alternation between figure and ground probably reflects mutual inhibitory processes that ensure a single perceptual outcome3. Which shape dominates perception depends on many factors, such as size, symmetry, convexity, enclosure, and so on, as well as attention and intention4. Here we show that the assignment of the visual border can be strongly influenced by auditory input, far more than is possible by voluntary intention. VIDEO ABSTRACT.
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