Sensory Substitution and the Transparency of Visual Experience

Abstract

Sensory substitution devices make use of information in one sensory modality to deliver information usually provided by another. But when information usually presented visually is presented to a subject in an auditory or haptic way, is the resulting experience in any sense visual? Or does sensory substitution show that dimensions of experience—about the spatial layout of objects and properties in the environment—that were previously taken to be essentially visual can be experienced in other modalities too? I will consider this question by looking at whether a property such as the transparency of visual experience can be transferred to, and enhance, experience in other modalities.