Introduction: Blessing or Curse?

Part 1 Liam

Chapter 1 How far can you see Mom?
Chapter 2 Dr. Ridley's Inventions
Chapter 3: A Window into the Brain
Chapter 4 Face
Chapter 5 Finding the Object
Chapter 6: The Greatest Teacher of Vision
Chapter 7: Riding the Flow
Chapter 8: Finding Your Own Way
Chapter 9: Christmas Lights on the Lawn

Part 2 Zohra

Chapter 10: Everything Has a Name
Chapter 11: Persistence Pays Off
Chapter 12: A Strange Feeling
Chapter 13: Squeaks, Bangs, and Laughter
Chapter 14: Talking to Others
Chapter 15: Talking to Yourself
Chapter 16 Notes
Chapter 17: Cocktail Party Problems
Chapter 18 Dr. Zohra Damji

Conclusion: Athletes of Perception

Acknowledgements
Source of the illustration
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“Not only is it clear, lucid, and often poetic,
“As a scientist, he also puts a lot of effort into explanation and interpretation” _Oliver Sacks

A hymn to human resilience and the ability to learn and adapt.
A book that will make you embrace the extraordinary ability to see and hear in a completely new way.

What would it feel like to have a sense I never had before?
Do seeing and hearing happen automatically?
The Nature of Sensation and Perception, Explained by a Neurobiologist

What if you could see after being blind all your life? Or hear for the first time? Many non-disabled people assume that adults who regain their sight or hearing would be overjoyed, but that's usually not the case.
Instead, they are plagued by meaningless scenes and sounds.
Some people are so pessimistic and at a loss that they lose the will to continue living.
Here is Liam, a boy born with virtually no vision, and Zohra, a girl born with hearing impairment.
After undergoing surgical procedures to restore their senses in their early to mid-teens, they struggle to learn to see and hear, leading healthy, independent lives.
How did Liam and Zohra learn to see and hear on their own? Can their stories offer a new perspective on how we all perceive the world?

Susan Barry, a neurobiologist who was born with stereoblindness and only began seeing the world in three dimensions in middle age, has been watching Liam and Zohra closely for ten years, listening to their stories.
Through his own experience and the case studies of two people, the author discovers a new way to understand perception.
We tend to think of perception as a passive, objective, and mechanical process, thinking of our eyes as cameras and our ears as microphones, but in this book, the author explores perception as a deeply personal act.
Our environment, relationships, and actions shape and reshape our senses throughout our lives.
The author argues that the answer to why some people adapt to new sensations while others do not, and why two people perceive the same world differently, lies not simply in the physiological characteristics of the individuals involved, but in their personal histories and life paths.


Liam and Zohra told me their story over a period of ten years.
These stories demonstrate that perception is a personal and private matter, and that we all have the power to change and adapt our perceptual systems to fit the physical and social world we share.
_Page 30

Those with congenital sensory impairment
What would it be like to regain your senses as an adult?
Will you be filled with gratitude and joy?
Is it impossible to develop new sensibilities after a 'critical period'?

The book begins with the story of a patient called 'SB'.
Diagnosed blind at 10 months old, he underwent corneal surgery at age 52 and was able to see the world with his eyes, rather than his ears or hands, for the first time in his life.
But the excitement and curiosity were short-lived; even after he was able to see, he did not turn his eyes to the sound, did not look at people's faces, and did not explore his surroundings as people with normal vision would.
Once healthy and outgoing, he became increasingly depressed and discouraged, fell ill, and died within two years.
Author Beverly Biederman, who was deaf for over 30 years and then received a cochlear implant to regain her hearing, also says the new sensation was overwhelming.
He wrote that after the surgery, he felt like “everything was falling apart” and that he “just wanted to die.”
For visually and hearing impaired people who have acquired new senses since childhood, the influx of sensory input is not a welcome gift; rather, it often becomes a sensory bombardment that leaves previously confident and socially competent adults depressed and frustrated.
German psychologist Marius von Senden reviewed 66 cases of people who had regained their sight after childhood and reported that it was almost always followed by a psychological crisis.
Research showing that covering one eye of a newborn cat or monkey for a while changes its brain wiring, causing it to lose binocular vision, lends scientific credence to these pessimistic reports.
So, if we lose our senses during this crucial early developmental period, does that mean the brain can no longer develop new senses? Neurobiologist Susan Barry offers the case of Liam and Zohra as an answer to this question.
And what these two are trying to do to adapt to new sensations reminds us that we all do this.

Studies, primarily conducted in the 21st century, have shown that the adult brain is much more plastic than previously thought, and new neurobiological mechanisms that enable this plasticity are being discovered.
Although the adult brain is not as flexible as a child's, a growing body of clinical and scientific research supports the idea that training can benefit older adults with vision and hearing loss.
Page 292

We are 'athletes of perception'
Liam, a boy who was almost blind from birth,
Zohra, a girl born with hearing impairment, gained hearing after surgery.
A story about adapting to new sensations and finding your own way.

Part 1 of the book tells the story of Liam McCoy, "the boy who learned to see."
Liam was born in 1990 and has had virtually no vision since birth.
The range he could see clearly was about 3 inches (about 7.5 centimeters) from his nose, and distant objects were not just blurry but completely invisible.
This was the result of a combination of severe myopia, strabismus, and albinism. The myopia was corrected with thick, sturdy glasses that “damaged the area where the glasses fell rather than breaking the glasses themselves if dropped,” and the strabismus was treated with three surgeries on the eye muscles.
After his first strabismus surgery at age three, Liam asked, “Where’s the funny other mom behind you?”
Because of his double vision, Liam saw two mothers, this second mother appearing to walk on the table or float in the air.
Despite these measures, Liam's already poor eyesight continued to deteriorate, leading to his virtual blindness.
Eventually, Liam underwent intraocular lens implant surgery at the age of 15.
Although the surgery dramatically improved his vision, he saw only fragmented lines and colors, not objects.
For example, if you were walking down the street and saw a line, you had to concentrate and judge each time, “Is that the boundary between pavement blocks, a crack in the cement, the outline of a pole, the shadow cast by a streetlight or telephone pole, or the appearance of steps on the sidewalk?”
But Liam, who has shown exceptional balance and athleticism since childhood and has never been intimidated by a challenge, actively tests his newfound vision, using a white cane, a handheld GPS, and Braille reading as the situation demands, creating his own way to function better in the world.


The second part follows the story of Zohra Damji, the girl who learned to listen.
Both sight and hearing are used to perceive the objects around us, but while sight is the sense that gives us clues to locate ourselves in space and to move around, hearing is the sense we use when talking to people.
Born in Tanzania in 1988, Zohra had difficulty hearing from a very young age, unable to hear sounds below 90 decibels, equivalent to gunshots or aircraft engines.
Hearing aids eventually became useless, so I had a cochlear implant when I was 12.
The surgery cost was paid by relatives pooling their money and taking out loans.
But after the surgery, all he could hear was a discordant, incomprehensible mix of voices, cars, and rain.
At first, all the sounds were scary, but after countless trials and errors and training that was so difficult and tiring that I was often in tears, I became comfortable with the sound of Johra.
For Zohra, who had only been able to perceive what she could see, being able to hear what was invisible was a strange experience, like suddenly having the ability to see through walls.
Like Liam, Zohra also uses lip reading to find her own way of communicating with the world when listening isn't enough.


Liam and Zohra became “perceptual athletes,” as we all did when we were young, without even realizing it, teaching themselves to see and hear like athletes train.
The author vividly portrays the confusion and difficulties the two people experience after surgery, and how they overcome these difficulties, adapt to new sensations, and grow, using a calm and unadorned style.
Through the stories of two people who had to consciously learn sensations and perceptions that were not learned automatically in infancy, the author explains in an accessible way how babies learn to see and hear, how the brain processes this sensory input, why acquiring new senses requires brain restructuring, and how past experiences and personal tendencies influence sensations and perception, drawing on his own experience of acquiring stereopsis in middle age and his knowledge of neurobiology.
It also introduces interesting stories related to the development and popularization of artificial lenses and cochlear implants.
As readers follow Liam and Zohra's journey of sensory recovery, they will discover that the senses we once took for granted are not simply physiological phenomena, but complex processes shaped by our experiences, environments, and relationships. They will also be amazed at how easily we can process so much information.
This book will make you embrace the extraordinary ability to see and hear in a completely new way.

For adults or adolescents, learning to see or hear is not simply a matter of mechanically recalibrating the eyes and ears or developing a set of skills.
Gaining a new sense is an event that fundamentally changes one's perceptual world.
Page 293

A deep bond built over 10 years
A moving and surprising insight into the senses, disability, and learning.
The beauty of learning, failing, and trying again.
A heartwarming science book about the strong and good will of ordinary people.

Neurologist and author Oliver Sacks described Susan Barrie as “a writer who writes clearly, lucidly, and often poetically, but who, as a scientist, also puts a lot of effort into explanation and interpretation.”
This characteristic of the author is well reflected in this book, which balances the human stories of Liam and Zohra with scientific explanations of how sight and hearing work.
The author's analytical yet warm, balanced approach is particularly impressive, having developed a long-term relationship with these individuals for over ten years, even though he is not their primary care physician or guardian.
The author, who met Liam and Zohra by chance in 2010, has been observing them closely for a long time, recording their growth and changes.
In April 2014, the author told Zohra's story to Oliver Sacks, with whom he had developed a friendship through correspondence, and received the following reply:
“I was fascinated by the detailed list of sounds that astonished the student who had the cochlear implant.
I was captivated by your description of the entire process and the student's experience, from the frightening, incomprehensible, and unfamiliar sensations to the meaningful (and sometimes beautiful) world of sound.
I have a 'strong' feeling that you should 'write in detail' that story in one piece, even if it's not a short book.
It's amazing material.
“There isn’t much to read about the origins of perception (in adults), the process of honing noise into signal.”

With Oliver Sacks's urging and encouragement, the author wrote this book by exchanging countless emails with Liam and Zohra, visiting their homes, meeting their families, and sharing in their everyday frustrations and joys.
Their stories, shaped by such profound bonds, go beyond mere medical success stories to broaden our understanding of senses and disabilities, and offer profound insights into human resilience and the ability to learn and adapt.
Liam and Zohra had to relearn the world through their newfound senses.
The process is not so different from how we learn, fail, and try again, so even non-disabled readers can empathize with their successes and failures, goals and challenges, joys and sorrows.


Also, as I read this book, my heart warms at the kind hearts of ordinary people who seem to be around me.
Liam decided to pursue a career in biomedical science because he wanted to help people with vision loss like himself, and he is learning as much as he can about eyes and vision.
I also joined a civic group that supports and advocates for people with poor eyesight or albinism.
Zohra also wanted to help others, so she returned to her home country of Tanzania, graduated from medical school, and became a doctor.
I also try to learn Swahili to communicate with patients.
In particular, the courage, dedication and strength shown by Liam's mother Cindy and Zohra's aunt Nazma are deeply moving just to consider.


Both were able to adapt to a society that takes sight and hearing for granted, succeed in mainstream schools, and adapt to new sensations thanks to the support of their families, doctors, therapists, and especially the unwavering dedication of Liam's mother, Cindy, and Zohra's aunt, Nazma.
Cindy and Nazma not only supported Liam and Zohra, providing guidance and training, but also taught them what they needed to learn to see and hear, and instilled in them the confidence that they could do it.
_Page 280

A coming-of-age story of two children with disabilities, a clinical report, and a rare scientific book on "perceptual learning," "The Senses I Never Had" perfectly balances human story and scientific explanation.
This book applauds the complexity and wonder of our senses and perceptions, which we often take for granted, the incredible plasticity and adaptability of our brains, and the effort we all make to find our own way, no matter how we were born or what we do.