Can A Praying Mantis Help Blind Children Find Their Way?

… or, my many love affairs

"So divine a creature is this esteemed, that if a childe aske the way to such a place, she will stretch out one of her feet, and shew him the right way, and seldome or never misse." Thomas Moffett, The Theatre of Insects, in Topsell, Historie of Fourfooted Beasts, 98, (1658 ed.), vol. 1II, pp. 982-3.

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Prologue

I don’t write to tell other people what (I think) I know. I write to figure out things that I don’t fully understand. At this point in my life, I find myself reflecting back on my journey, trying to make some sense of the struggles between the good and the bad of it all. As I pull threads out of that experiential tapestry to give them each a closer look, sometimes it helps to describe them out loud. This is my best recollection of one such thread, should you be interested.

The Beginning

When I was in grade school, we lived across the street from a small patch of undeveloped forest preserve. Now, it’s a manicured park. But, when I was a kid, it was untamed. Stands of old trees reaching out of tangled underbrush surrounded a small pond that was fed by a slow moving creek. And, it was all just steps from my front door. I spent most of my play time in those woods, collecting bugs, catching crayfish, and scooping up jars of algae that I meticulously examined under my microscope. It was all fascinating — intoxicating, really — and I fell in love with biology.

I was a nerd.

Then, in my teen years, I developed a second passion. That was service to others. In high school, I was part of the youth ministry at my non-denominational community church. I worked with kids’ groups, and was assistant to the pastor during Sunday services. Occasionally, I even got to deliver a sermon.

Unfortunately, none of this sat well with my father. I was just too nerdy, too much of an ‘egg-head’. He wanted a more ‘normal’, rough-and-tumble son. You know, the kind who can talk about baseball and cars (two subjects about which I still know nothing).

His disappointment seemed odd to me, especially since I did other things in high school, too. Unfortunately, none of them pleased him. Maybe it was because they were all kind of unusual activities for the time: I competed in the Midwest Division AAU Junior Olympics as a weightlifter (I won my division), and I won awards in both the state science fair (for my research on amino acids and tissue regeneration), and the state industrial arts fair (for a secretary’s desk that I built).

But none of that changed his mind. I still wasn’t the right kind of kid. So, I left high school thinking that I was, fundamentally, a failure, and that message played repeatedly in the back of my mind for many years. Occasionally, I can still hear it whispering.

The rather modest medal awarded by the AAU Midwest Junior Olympics the year I competed.

Despite my father’s disparaging assessment, however, my two loves – biology and service – never abandoned me. When I went to college, I planned to merge them together by becoming a physician.

My Journey Out

I grew up in a working-class suburban neighborhood. Neither my parents nor any of our family friends had gone to college, and high school counselors weren’t then what they are now. Consequently, I didn’t get much help picking a school. So, I applied to a small liberal arts college in Iowa because some of the smart kids I knew – including my girlfriend – were going there. I planned on majoring in biology.

Then something went awry at the college bookstore. As I walked down the aisle toward the stacks of biology textbooks, I passed a shelf of philosophy books. One caught my eye: The Pre-Socratic Philosophers from Thales to Zeno. I’d never heard of philosophy, let alone pre-Socratic philosophy, so I picked it up and started reading. I was mesmerized. I stood in the middle of the aisle reading as fast as I could, lost in time until another student asked me to move. I don’t remember buying the biology textbook, but I did walk out with the philosophy book. I had fallen in love again.

I spent my days, and then the first several years of my academic life lost in philosophy’s heady embrace. It was an intellectual universe that I could never have imagined before that day.

As the semesters passed, I exhausted the sparse offerings of the college’s tiny, two-professor Philosophy Department. I wanted more. So, I transferred to a large state school and began to devour what they had to offer: the British empiricists, the European rationalists, the early American philosophers. I couldn’t get enough.

Then, by happenstance, I took a couple of courses on phenomenology and the philosophy of religion. One was taught by an enthusiastically eccentric professor with a handlebar mustache who introduced me to writers like Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Mircea Eliade. The other was taught by a professor from India. He introduced me to the foundational texts of Hinduism — the Vedas, Upanishads and Mahabharata — and the poetry of the Gitanjali. A new intellectual door swung open, and I saw a world of possibilities even more alluring than the Western canon.

It was all so intellectually sensuous, so seductive. I surrendered to the sirens. I hoped they would be kind to me.

Pilgrimages

In the midst of all this, I happened to read a biography of Mahatma Gandhi. I was intrigued by the way that he wove together his intellectual, religious and political beliefs into a life dedicated to serving others, and I wanted to see first-hand how that synergy had fared over time. So, with a couple of changes of clothes and that biography packed in a small satchel, I left for India to study at the Gujarat Vidyapith in Ahmedabad, a school (now university) founded by Gandhi in 1920.

When I was there, the school was much different than it is now. Students lived in small unadorned rooms in simple, unassuming rectangular buildings. Each room had a mat atop a wooden platform for a bed, a small cupboard with a stainless-steel cup and tray for food, and a clay pot to fetch drinking water from a well. The single window had no glass, just bars and a shutter. It wasn’t unusual to see lizards scurrying around the walls in the early morning.

Each day started with all of us sitting in rows on the floor of a large brightly lit room (women on one side, men on the other) for communal meditation and bhajans (devotional songs). After that, we spent half an hour spinning a ball of cotton into Khadi thread on a small spinning wheel called a charkha. Students who worked in the weaving room made our thread into cloth that was used to sew the traditional Indian clothes that we all wore.

A charkha like the ones we used at the school.

I never saw the female students outside of morning meditation. So, I have no idea what their days were like. But, I assume they were similar to ours.

The male students ate together in a large otherwise empty room on the ground floor of our dorm. Every morning and evening, we’d all file in, take a small wooden platform from a stack by the door, and arrange them in a grand oval around the room. There we’d sit, cross-legged on platforms raised just a few inches off the floor, and wait to be served the very same meal every day, twice a day.

A stone half-wall separated our eating area from a small space at one end of the hall in which the cook both prepared our meals and lived. To serve us, he made two trips around the ring of students. On the first, he gave us a raw onion, a ladle full of cooked vegetables, and two chapati (unleavened bread). On the second trip, we got a serving of rice that he scooped out of a cauldron with his hand and plopped onto our trays.

The remainder of each day was spent reading, discussing philosophy and culture, and exploring the neighborhoods around the school.

It was quite an experience for a young kid who’d spent his whole life in the American Midwest. Both exhilarating and remarkable, it drew me through an unanticipated intellectual — perhaps spiritual — metamorphosis. Part of that reconfiguration left me with the conviction that a commitment to something beyond oneself — whatever it is — and committed caring for others — irrespective of their idiosyncrasies, quirks or differences — are the only foundational elements of a life well lived.

After I left the school, I traveled around India for a while. Then, I made three more pilgrimages. The first was to Bsharrī in northern Lebanon, the birthplace of Khalil Gibran (1883-1931), an essayist and poet whose writings had been particularly influential to me. There, I spent some time near the Cedars of God, as they’re called, reading and thinking.

The second was to the Greek island of Crete, to pay my respects at the grave of Nikos Kazantzakis (1883-1957) a monumental Greek novelist whose intellectual strength, and commitment to principle laid the early foundation for much of my thinking. At his grave site overlooking the city of Heraklion, I finally saw first-hand the inscription on his tombstone, “Δεν ελπίζω τίποτα. Δε φοβάμαι τίποτα. Είμαι λέφτερος" (I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free).

I wept.

My third pilgrimage was to the communal farm, Kibbutz Yifat in the Valley of Jezreel in Israel. There, I worked in the chicken coops, shoveling manure, collecting eggs, and packing truckloads of chickens for market.

It was hard, dirty, but rewarding work. In particular, it taught me the similarities between communal life on a kibbutz and that at the Gujarat Vidyapith, two tightly knit communities based on shared values, commitment to others, and a common, transcendent understanding of life.

I returned a different person.

What I Learned at My First Job

When I returned, I was fortunate enough to get a job at a residential school for young people who were developmentally and cognitively challenged. At the interview, I asked for, and was given the opportunity to work with those who had the most severe challenges. I worked hard, and eventually was promoted to co-chair of the department. In that role, I developed and implemented programs to help the students become as independent as they could, and live their best lives within the sheltered environment in which they would always need to stay.

I loved that job.

Eventually, however, I had to leave. Unfortunately, as rewarding as such jobs are, those of a certain age will remember when they were considered “second jobs” taken primarily by women whose husbands were assumed to be the “breadwinners.” Thankfully, these pay inequalities have lessened. But, at the time, I simply could not make ends meet on $5,200 a year. (The U.S. median income then was about $10,000).

Working at the school was my first ‘adult’ job. And, it taught me three important lessons. First, I was good with the students. Presumably, that’s why I was promoted, and why my programs were considered successful.

Second, I learned that as good as I was with the students, I was not good with the adults with whom I worked. I just didn’t ‘get’ the way they thought or how they acted. So, I was often in hot water for some social faux pas or another. Clearly, I was too unfiltered, too ‘generous’ with my opinions, too heterodox, and certainly too out-of-the-norm. I was never intentionally different. I just wasn’t like everyone else.

Third, I learned that I’m apparently oblivious to the unspoken rules that shape the world of ‘grown-ups’ (as I still call them). Perhaps that’s why I was so content peering through my microscope for hours on end, so happy when lost in a book, and so content traipsing around the world on my own. And, maybe that’s why I was so comfortably effective working with my special needs students. They were always just themselves: nonjudgmental, unpretentious, no unspoken agendas, no Machiavellian motivations, no power struggles, and they accepted me as I was. They were always genuinely open, sometimes painfully honest, and always unflinchingly candid. I’m comfortable with that.

The Difficult Realization

Having spent so much of my life lost in thought and absorbed by my passions, and coming-of-age while traveling around India, I guess I saw the world differently than did my colleagues. On the one hand, I was much more tolerant of behavioral diversity and heterodox opinions (no matter how awkwardly stated or candidly expressed). On the other hand, I was less tolerant of behaviors that I perceived as ill-conceived, unkind, unfair, or unethical, and I didn’t hesitate to offer my opinion when I thought such behaviors occurred. Clearly, I was annoying — albeit unintentionally. So, for good or ill, I always felt like I was swimming upstream. And, it’s totally my fault that I never really understood why… or how to change.

In retrospect, I guess that’s why my exasperated fifth grade teacher moved my school desk out into the hallway. Isolated out there, I was neither a distraction nor an interruption to the other (mostly incurious) 11-year-olds he had to teach. And, to be honest, I was quite content to be by myself, to do my work, read and think, uninterrupted by the monotony of the middle school curriculum. (I came up with a pretty good science fair project that year, too.)

Had I been born much later, I probably would’ve been diagnosed with some kind of neuro-divergence… but, at the time, no one had invented the right combination of letters yet.

A Final Lesson

The final lesson that I learned at my ‘grown-up’ job came directly from the students. They taught me how little I knew about the rich diversity of the human mind.

Learning how ignorant I am seems to be a recurring theme in my life.

So, after some years working in the real world (that’s another story), I went back to college at a large state university, this time to study psychology. Thus began a five year academic feast. Every class was delicious and, at the end of each, I was hungry for more. By the time I finished, I had consumed all of the courses the Psychology Department had to offer. It was sumptuous.

As I worked my way through the menu of courses, I learned that my beloved philosophy had actually given birth to psychology. Psychology, in turn, had married biology, and they had a daughter named “Biological Psychology.” Now that she’s older, however, she often goes by the name “Neuroscience.”

Once again, I was smitten. So much so, that I applied to The University of Chicago to get a PhD in her name.

I Met Her in Grad School

During the application process, I was accepted into a laboratory that studied the physiology of sleep using the ubiquitous white rat as a subject. Although my research went well, and I published enough to earn a Master’s degree, I didn’t care for the lab. I was uncomfortable with the authoritarian lab director (I really don’t like being told what to do), and I never fit in with the younger, unnecessarily competitive graduate students.

Worse, though, was the fact that I could not become inured to the four hour surgical procedure through which we had to put the rats to prepare them for experimentation. Too much empathy for the underdog, I guess.

So, I had to find a different research path. But, I didn’t have a clue what to do.

Then, on a crisp autumn morning at the beginning of my third year, lost in thought, I strolled across campus toward the biology library, hoping to find some topic engaging enough to pursue for my doctorate. As I neared the building, I noticed a few students clustered together, staring down at the front steps. I walked over to see what they were watching.

And there she was. A large female praying mantis. She had to be about 6 inches long. My heart started to pound. I’d never seen such a beautiful creature. She was magnificent. I reached down and held out my hand. She climbed on board and I carefully carried her back to my office at the Sleep Research Laboratory. I stood a ruler upright in my coffee cup and moved her close. She reached out, grabbed the ruler and clambered to the top to look around. My heart was still pounding. I had fallen in love again.

Because I knew absolutely nothing about her (except that she was beautiful), I knew she’d be a perfect topic for my dissertation. Every fact that I learned would be an unexpected gift.

A mantis (Tenodera a. sinensis) like the one I found on the library steps.......

Impetuous and drunk with excitement, I quietly closed my office door and rushed across campus to talk to the Chair of the Biopsychology Department. He was a stern, old-fashioned, German-trained professor with a booming basso profundo voice. He occupied a small, drab office in Green Hall, one of the first buildings erected on The U. of C. campus. Many found him unapproachable. I got along well with him, perhaps because he valued little else than clear thinking and hard work. I can do that.

I made my pitch.

I knew there was a long-abandoned research laboratory in the basement of the building. I asked if I could use the empty space to do my doctoral research on praying mantises. I would clean it, I said, equip it myself, and I wouldn’t ask for any money from the department. I would support my research through my part-time teaching. All I wanted was the space and the freedom to work unfettered. He agreed.

This was the graduate school equivalent of having my desk put out in the hall in fifth grade. I had space, solitude, and a reprieve from the distractions of other graduate students. I was thrilled.

My lab at The University of Chicago

I went back to the Sleep Research Laboratory, resigned, fetched my mantis, and returned to my basement hideaway to begin a new adventure. Over the next couple of years, I raised hundreds of praying mantises of various species, did scores of experiments, and published more than enough scientific papers to earn a PhD. I even began a book about mantises that was eventually published by the Johns Hopkins University Press.

The Praying Mantids received an Honorable Mention for Outstanding Professional and Scholarly Titles in Biological Science from the Association of American Publishers.

What My Mantids Saw

My research focused on the praying mantis’ unique visual system. I was drawn to vision research because my father was blind, I had two cousins who were blind from birth, and I am visually impaired. So, the research had meaning to me beyond pure science. I was particularly interested in the way that the mantis visual system identifies and locates objects in 3-dimensional space, especially with such a tiny brain. I continued this line of research for more than two decades after graduate school as an Assistant Professor in both psychology and biology departments at several universities.

Those years of teaching and research were fascinating, and I’ve had the privilege of working with scores of outstanding students. I even received a few teaching awards along the way (which were due to the quality of my students rather than to anything that I did). However, through it all, I never forgot the life lessons taught to me by the special needs students who started me on my academic journey, and I realized that it was time to give something back or, more aptly, to pay my debt forward.

A Relief

By this time, the parental message of disapproval that echoed in the back of my mind was growing quieter. Over the years, it had been annoying but never debilitating. Ironically, it became an unforgiving motivator, persistently pushing me to accomplish enough to finally prove it wrong. Of course, that was a fool’s errand, as those with similar, parentally-installed thoughts know all too well. Thankfully, mine was fading. Perhaps I didn’t need it anymore.

I also finally accepted that, in general, it was better to simply 'show up, stay quiet, and blend in,' as they say. Most people aren’t interested in big philosophical discussions. They don’t want to talk about free will or the grand ethical implications of their behavior. They certainly don’t care if I think their comments about other people are unkind or ill-informed, or whether I believe both sides of a controversial issue have merit. Most people just want to live their lives, chat about what they had for lunch, and remain intellectually unperturbed. I finally got it. So, I surrendered, and saved my opinions and passion for deep conversations for the few who actually cared. I was much quieter. Everyone else was much happier.

Paying My Debt Forward

Now a bit calmer of mind, I began to wonder if I could combine my knowledge of praying mantis vision — particularly their ability to locate objects in 3-dimensional space — with what I knew about psychology in a way that could help special needs youngsters with visual impairments. Perhaps, I thought, I could design or enhance an assistive technology to make it safer and easier for them to navigate their world.

My mind raced through the possibilities.

One thought was that I might be able to use haptic feedback as a substitute for some aspects of vision loss. “Haptics” are stimuli that you can feel, like the vibrations and clicks of your smartphone, or the sensations produced by virtual reality gloves.

When I first came up with the idea – which I talked about in an Ohio public radio interview many years ago – it wasn’t yet technologically feasible. Since then, however, the miniaturization and increased processing speed of computer chips revolutionized electronics, and researchers began integrating haptics into a variety of rehabilitation therapies, prosthetics, and brain-computer interfaces (BCIs).

Perfect, I thought. It’s time to give this a try.

So, I set up a small, non-profit venture called Haptic Insight LLC. Then, I realized that I faced a major roadblock: Haptics is a field based on psychology, neurobiology, electronics, and computer programming. I knew the first two, but I didn’t know anything about electronics or computer programming. So, I had to teach myself.

Thank God for YouTube.

It wasn’t too long before I was building some wearable, assistive technology prototypes. The first one was an artificial seeing system that I modeled after the praying mantis’ visual system. It’s based on a tiny camera and a small computer about half the size of a deck of playing cards. It locates objects in the environment (even if they’re moving) and activates a corresponding pattern of haptic feedback for the user. In proof-of-concept experiments, my son was able to follow me around a room without any visual input. (He was wearing a blindfold.) It’s a pretty cool project that my students and I are still developing. I think it has promise. You can see an early experimental video here at the bottom of the web page.

We call our second project the “Proximity Jacket.” It uses specialized distance sensors to identify the location of obstacles (like walls or people). A microcomputer about the size of your finger translates that information into haptic feedback that varies with the distance and approach speed of the obstacles. In experiments, users deprived of visual input have been able to navigate within buildings by following walls and hallways without bumping into anything, including passersby that unexpectedly block their path. There are some interesting experimental videos here, here, and here.

Our third project is a haptic-enhanced white cane that not only senses nearby obstacles but ‘knows’ which way and how fast it's moving. This is important because standard white canes have to bump into something before the user knows it's there. Sometimes that’s too late. Standard canes also miss potentially dangerous obstacles if, for instance, you’re sweeping the cane to your left as an obstacle approaches on your right.

One of my research students (who is blind), uses a haptic-enhanced white cane to avoid bumping into obstacles (boxes) in the hallway....

In experiments, our haptic-enhanced canes reduced obstacle collisions by as much as 90%. In the real world, those obstacles could be serious trip and fall hazards.

It’s all very exciting.

My Last Love Affair

So, this is my final passion, easing the way for young people whose vision is diminished or gone. Although I do, admittedly, have a personal stake in this research, my strongest inspiration are those young people who face a world much more visually challenging than mine.

Epilogue

In retrospect, it seems that this thread has come full circle. All of my past loves — philosophy, psychology, biology and service — have merged into this final venture. I hope that it will come to full fruition before I am gone. It will be a final “thank you” to my very first students.