Hi, Folks:

It sounds like sighted folks could benefit far more from this than us bllind
folsk.

Peter Altschul

At 10:22 PM 2/22/98 -0500, you wrote:
> THIS WEEK:                                                           31 Jan 98
> #21  Singing sirens could save the blind.
>
>   By ROB EDWARDES
>If you cannot see, you may not be able to find your way out of a burning
>building-and that could be fatal. A company in Leeds could change all that
>with directional sound alarms capable of guiding you to the exit.
>Sound Alert, a company set up by the University of Leeds, is installing the
>alarms in a residential home for blind people in Somerset and a resource
>centre for the visually impaired in Cumbria. The alarms produce a wide range
>of frequencies that enable the brain to determine where the sound is coming
>from.
>Deborah Withington of Sound Alert says that the alarms use most of the
>frequencies that can be heard by humans. 'It is a burst of white noise that
>people say sounds like static on the radio,' she says. 'Its life-saving
>potential is great.'
>She conducted an experiment in which people were filmed by thermal-imaging
>cameras trying to find their way out of a large smoke-filled room. It took
>them nearly four minutes to find the door without a sound alarm, but only 15
>seconds with one.
>Withington studies how the brain processes sound at the university. She says
>that the source of a wide band of frequencies can be pinpointed more easily
>than the source of a narrow band. Sirens based on the same concept have
>already been installed on emergency vehicles (This Week, 23 September 1995,
>p 11).
>The alarms will also include rising or falling frequencies to indicate
>whether people should go up and down stairs. They were developed with the
>aid of a Pounds Sterling 215 000 grant from British Nuclear Fuels.
>
>New Scientist
>Volume  157.   Issue   2119.
>Copyright (C) IPC Magazines Ltd, 1985-1997
>
>
>Bud Kennedy
>email: [log in to unmask]
>
>