We describe a sensory substitution scheme that converts a video stream into an audio stream in real-time. It was initially developed as a research tool for studying human ability to learn new ways of perceiving the world: the Vibe can give us the ability to learn a kind of ‘vision’ by audition. It converts a video stream into a continuous stereophonic audio signal that conveys information coded from the video stream. The conversion from the video stream to the audio stream uses a kind of retina with receptive fields. Each receptive field controls a sound source and the user listens to a sound that is a mixture of all these sound sources. Compared to other existing vision-to-audition sensory substitution devices, the Vibe is highly versatile in particular because it uses a set of configurable units working in parallel. In order to demonstrate the validity and interest of this method of vision to audition conversion, we give the results of an experiment involving a pointing task to targets memorised through visual perception or through their auditory conversion by the Vibe. This article is also an opportunity to precisely draw the general specifications of this scheme in order to prepare its implementation on an autonomous/mobile hardware.

中文翻译：

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氛围：一种多功能的视觉到听觉感觉替代设备

我们描述了一种感官替代方案，该方案将视频流实时转换为音频流。它最初是作为一种研究工具开发的，用于研究人类学习感知世界的新方法的能力：共鸣可以使我们能够通过试听来学习一种“视觉”。它将视频流转换为连续的立体声音频信号，以传达从视频流编码的信息。从视频流到音频流的转换使用了一种具有接收场的视网膜。每个接收场控制一个声源，并且用户收听所有这些声源的混合声音。与其他现有的从视觉到听觉的感觉替代设备相比，Vibe具有高度的通用性，特别是因为它使用了一组并行工作的可配置单元。为了证明这种视觉方法向听觉转换的有效性和兴趣，我们给出了一项实验结果，该实验涉及指向任务，该任务指向通过视觉感知或通过Vibe通过听觉转换记忆的目标。本文也是一个机会，可以精确地绘制此方案的一般规范，以准备在自治/移动硬件上实现它。