Name: TriDereka Hall

Article Review Outline

Reference:
Ekkel, M. R., Lier, R. V., & Steenbergen, B. (2016). Learning to echolocate in sighted people: a
correlational study on attention, working memory and spatial abilities. Experimental Brain
Research. doi:10.1007/s00221-016-4833-z

Purpose of the study:

The study was about the functions of echolocation and how different factors can
influence the learning of it such as working memory, spatial abilities, and sustained attention.
The study looked at previous experiments of researchers who studied different aspects of
echolocation and found that humans can learn this form of detection such as Rice and Feinstein,
Teng and Whitney, and Thaler. These past experiments influenced this study. Normally,
echolocation is an action that assists visually impaired people, but in the study, it utilized people
with normal vision to test their ability to learn how to echolocate. By testing their ability to learn
how to echolocate, the study sought to see a correlation with working memory, spatial abilities,
and sustained attention and its effects on their individual performance.

Hypothesis(es):
By using previous methods from other experiments, the study hypothesized that the
different components, working memory, spatial abilities, and sustained attention would have a
relationship with the learning performance or ability of the participants.

Methods (Materials/Procedure):
There were 23 participants in the study with 5 being removed because they did not use
head movements during the study. The movement of the head was found to be important to
echolocation, so the 5 were not included in the results. The study involved four days of tasks:
echolocation task, spatial ability, working memory and sustained attention. The participants were
blinded one of the tasks to simulate them having a visual impairment like an individual who
would normally utilize echolocation. In the echolocation task, the participants were asked to
distinguish between two circle discs on horizontal bars in a size-discrimination task. This task
was influenced by Teng and Whitney and Thaler et al. The discs that were on the bars had five
different diameters. In this task, they were to say which one they believed was larger based upon
the vibration of sound from a provided speaker that was put on the center of their forehead. They
did 200 trials with 20 seconds to make a decision. The participants were able to move their heads
during this task. The participants ear was 50 cm away from the disc. First, the participant was
asked to determine the larger disc without the sound of the speaker (no sound judgement) for a
control, and then again with the sound of the speaker (sound judgement) per trial. They were also
asked on a scale of 1-5 how sure they were of their decision.
 In the spatial ability task, it was influenced by the experiment of Simons and Wang and
Pasqualotto and Newell. For the task, the format included a circular platform with 36 markers
that had 6 different objects inside them. The objects, a rectangular solid, cube, cylinder, sphere,
cone, and pyramid, were random on the platform about 10 cm from one another. The participant
was given the opportunity to study the placement of the objects for 60 seconds. After the 60
seconds, the researcher then turned the platform 90 degrees took away an object. The participant
was asked to recall the location of a certain object that was removed and place it back in its
original location. In each trial, the researcher removed one or two objects with 12 trials. The
participant received feedback as well in three trials. Correct object placement had to put the right
location or beside the correct original location.
In the working memory task, the study utilized the digit span subtest of the Dutch
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale. The participant had to recall numbers to the researcher in
different orders such as reading them forward, backwards, or by sorting them in a particular
fashion. The researcher consistently increased the amount of numbers in each two trials. The
score was determined by the number of correct trials without inaccurately doing two trials in a
row.
The last task measured sustained attention. It was measured by utilizing the Dutch
version of the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Task (PASAT). For the task, the participants were
given a series of 60 numbers and asked to add each number with the one before it and provide
the sum right after each two numbers. There were five trials and with the each trial, the time
between numbers would decrease. The score was determined by the correct calculations in the
trials. For example, if an individual was given the string of numbers 2,3,2,3,5, the correct
additions would be 5,5,5,8.
The data for the tasks were analyzed by using a three-way repeated ANOVA. The
dependent variable was the percent of correct answers in the judgements for the echolocation
task and the independent variable was the ability of the individual to distinguish between the
discs with the speaker.

Major findings:
The study found that the percentages of the trials in the echolocation task had variation.
The percentages had variation which included 42-80% in the first trial and 48-96% in the last
trial. In the sound judgement versus the no-sound judgement, there was a trend in seeing that the
participants remained at a chance level in the no-sound judgement and in the sound judgement,
there was a significant positive increase from the first and last sessions. Although correlations
between echolocation with spatial ability and working memory were not discovered in the study,
there was a positive correlation between echolocation and the results of the PASAT task.
The study also found that its results were aligned with the results of previous studies
about individuals that have normal vision can learn to use echolocation through tasks like the
ones in the study.
Implications of findings:
With the positive increase in the percentage correct in the echolocation task, the study
found that echolocation there is a main effect. The study gives reasoning behind the lower
correlation between echolocation and spatial abilities being they are less relevant if not applied in
the actual world settings. These findings in combination with the other major findings support
the idea that there could be increased activity of of echolocation with learning because of the
significant difference between the first and last session in the echolocation task. With increased
knowledge about echolocation and how individuals can effectively learn in tasks, the field could
be able to improve different programs that help visually impaired people. The study mentions
that there is a lack of specific protocols, and learning more about what effects certain factors
have on echolocation can create those protocols that are needed.

Possible future directions:

In the study, it felt that it was important to further study the influence of echolocation on
individuals with visual impairments. It was stated that individuals with with visual impairments
would naturally be able to use echolocation more effectively than individuals with normal vision.
Because of this fact if the study were to be replicated, it could use participants with not only
normal vision, but with vision impairments. I believe it would positively affect the results
because it could be found that there is a correlation between working memory and spatial
abilities with experience of echolocation. Visual impaired individual would have used the act of
echolocation over a longer period of time. It could be that more exposure to echolocation
increases the correlation of working memory and spatial ability to echolocation. The results
would be compared between the divided participant groups to evaluate the differences. With
more learning and information, individuals could improve their echolocation and contribute to
programs of echolocation training.