#human echolocation

What are humans capable?

Yes, there is something akin to Daredevil’s radar sense in RL.

It’s called “Facial Vision” or sometimes referred to as “Human Ecolocation”. It’s been studied for centuries- the first published account was in 1749. Despite this, people aren’t 100% sure how it works. What we do know is that it heavily relies on your sense of hearing (1).

Facial Vision is “the ability of a blind person not only to perceive the presence of objects but also to judge accurately of their distance” (2).

Originally, it was believed this ability stemmed from a person’s sense of touch- seeing as the persons experiencing it described it as a very tactile sensation- having to do with the action of the air on their face, pressure/temperature of the air, or pressure in the inner ear. But other theories include having to do with magnetism, electricity, or radiation.

I think you can see where I’m headed with this.

Nowadays, it’s generally believed to be caused by sound. This theory first gained credence due to the work of Theodor Heller. Heller ran experiments testing whether “facial vision” was caused by touch or by sound; he tested each by removing one sense and judging how close a blind person would be before they sensed the object in the room. He found that very little relied on touch: with sound eliminated, subjects could perceive objects at 60-70 cm, however, using their sense of hearing, subjects could detect objects at 3-4 meters (3). A similar study run by Fletcher Dresslar around the same time concluded had the same result: that “facial vision” was due to “differences in sound” (4). 

Later, Robert MacDougall did experiments that led him to conclude that “sound, pressure, and perhaps temperature all help in the perception of objects” (5). 

From then on, most debate was on which part of the ear is responsible: the vestibule, cochlea, etc. Though others still believed that there was a tactile connection as well.

Then along came Dr. Vladmiri Dolanski, a blind psychologist from Russia, who postulated that sense perception “suggested danger to an individual and thus caused contraction of small muscles in the skin” (6), explaining how an audial perception could come across feeling like a physical one.

Despite many studies on the subject having been performed since, no one can quite explain how exactly it happens- though they all agree sound plays a very large part.

Interestingly enough, not even the people who experience “facial vision” can agree on a cause, and many find it a difficult sensation to explain; the same way Matt struggles to describe his radar sense in Daredevil: Road Warrior #1:

So it makes an alarming amount of sense that the “Radar Sense” is in fact a highly enhanced and specialized form of facial vision/ human echolocation; Matt’s hypersenses allowing for a more detailed perception as well as a longer range of perception (edge of perception being approx. 100 ft rather than 12 ft) for the radar sense (7). 

(1) Supa, Michael; Cotzin, Milton; and Dallenbach, Karl, The American Journal of Psychology, Vol. 57, No. 2, Apr. 1944, 133-183.

(2) D.Diderot, “Letter on the Blind”, 1749, Early Philosophical Works, trans. by M. Jourdain, 1916, 68-141.

(3) T. Heller, “Studien zur Blinden Psychologie”, 1904, 113.

(4) Dresslar, Fletcher B., “ On the Pressure Sense of the Drum of the Ear and Facial Vision”, American Journal of Psychology, Vol. 5, No. 3, 1893, 344-350.

(5) MacDougall, Robert, “Facial Vision: A Supplementary Report with Criticisms”, American Journal of Psychology, Vol. 15, No. 3, 1904, 383-390. 

(6) Dolanski, Vladimir, “Do the Blind Sense Obstacles?”, And There Was Light, Vol. 1, 1931, 8-12