Can blind people visualise?

[motorollin]

If a person who was blind from birth feels a three dimensional object, let's say an embossed triangle, do they have a visual representation of that object like a sighted person would if he were to feel the same shape in a darkened room which prevent him from seeing it?

I think not, because the blind person would have no ability to visualise having never been able to perceive anything visually. I imagine that a blind person's mental representation would be stored using some other sense. So the representation of the triangle shape would be stored as a memory of how it felt, rather than that touch sense being translated in to a visual representation.

Maybe if we have a blind member he can give some insight (pun intended).

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moto

[Caius]

As you suggest, I think the reason people visualise things is because sight is the primary sense that humans use to orientate in the world. (which is why I'd rather be deaf than blind, for example)

Perhaps the blind has a more tactile memory of items?

[Caius]

I've met a few blind people who wanted to touch my face. Perhaps it's easier to remember people that way, rather than by voice recognition.

[motorollin]

Caius wrote:
Perhaps the blind has a more tactile memory of items?

Yes I agree. That's what I meant when I said "the triangle shape would be stored as a memory of how it felt, rather than that touch sense being translated in to a visual representation". I think your paraphrase was more concise :-)

Caius wrote:
I've met a few blind people who wanted to touch my face. Perhaps it's easier to remember people that way, rather than by voice recognition.

I have heard that some blind people do this (though have never experienced it), and even prefer the feel of some faces rather than others and find them in that way more attractive - just as sighted people use their vision in this way.

The question is still whether the sense of touch when feeling the face is converted in to some kind of visual representation for reference. As I said I don't think this would be possible. But only a blind person could really know. Or could they? Would they recognise a visual representation in their minds eye as visual, never having had a "real" visual experience to which to compare it? Perhaps the only way we could guess is to carry out a brain scan of a blind person feeling a three dimensional object or a face, and see whether the visual cortex is active at the time.

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moto

[KThunder]

i had a friend while growing up that was blind and she had a very good sence of spacial relationships and object size and shape. it would not be what sighted people would consider visualization. but she could easily [imagine things she had held and felt.
close your eyes and imagine a 3 dimensional object in black and white. imagine it with a specific texture and weight and hardness. that i think is what it is like. its tough for a sighted person to do without seeing it in our minds and probably equally tough for a blind person for the opposite.
the blind especially those trained to read in braille have an extra sensitive sense of touch. my friend (lisa) had a watch that she could flip the bezel up on and feel the hands and even tell seconds. the second hand would barely register to my finger.

[bloodline]

Ever tried to "read" braille? I can't make out a thing... but a skilled reader of braille can simply run their finger tips over the "writing" as significant speed and read it perfectly. While I don't think the blind person can "visualise" the raised surfaces, what is clear is that they have a highly developed spacial mapping.

While I doubt you or I could ever understand fully the detail of the mapping, I think you can get the idea of how it works... after all when playing a synth or even typing on the keyboard in front of you or driving a car, you don't need to think about the spacial relationships involved you have a natural ability to co-ordinate without really thinking.

I imagine a blind person simply has a finer grained version of that... because we can use our eyes we never think of it as a two way system, but it is.

As a fun experiment  blindfold yourself for a week and see how you get on around your house? :-)

Interestingly the part of the brain that deals with spatial relationships is located right next to the visual cortex... The human brain has been well documented in it's ability to reorganise due to damage, especially in neighbouring areas... if the visual cortex is unstimulated I'm sure it will reassign to assist more demanded areas.

Oh, and I bet A.org is a barrel of laughs for a blind person... :-(

[motorollin]

bloodline wrote:
Ever tried to "read" braille? I can't make out a thing... but a skilled reader of braille can simply run their finger tips over the "writing" as significant speed and read it perfectly. While I don't think the blind person can "visualise" the raised surfaces, what is clear is that they have a highly developed spacial mapping.

I agree. The person I was debating this with felt that blind people feel braille then represent it visually, and then "read" that visual version like written/printed text. I think this is highly unlikely.

bloodline wrote:
While I doubt you or I could ever understand fully the detail of the mapping, I think you can get the idea of how it works... after all when playing a synth or even typing on the keyboard in front of you or driving a car, you don't need to think about the spacial relationships involved you have a natural ability to co-ordinate without really thinking.

Yes that's true. But is this because of some internalised visual map which helps you to navigate? Think of what happens when you play a new synth, or get a keyboard with a different layout, or drive an unfamiliar car? You have to look around to create a visual map so you can navigate the object. A blind person's equivalent would be to feel their way around, but the question remains as to how their "map" is stored: as a map of touch stimuli, or converted in to a pictorial form? As I said I think the former is the case, and it sounds like you agree, but we can't really know for sure. And that's annoying ;-)

bloodline wrote:
As a fun experiment  blindfold yourself for a week and see how you get on around your house? :-)

Might be a bit of an issue when I need to go to uni. If you don't hear from me for a while, then it's likely I've had a horrible accident at the train station...

bloodline wrote:
Interestingly the part of the brain that deals with spatial relationships is located right next to the visual cortex... The human brain has been well documented in it's ability to reorganise due to damage, especially in neighbouring areas... if the visual cortex is unstimulated I'm sure it will reassign to assist more demanded areas.

Ohhhhh stop giving me things to read about! :lol:

bloodline wrote:
Oh, and I bet A.org is a barrel of laughs for a blind person... :-(

Well there is at least one partially sighted user. ISTR a thread about Amiga accessibility for blind users. But yes, I expect a.org like any text-heavy site is a bit hard work if you can't see. Might be easier to print it out in braille!

--
moto

[bloodline]

motorollin wrote:

bloodline wrote:
Ever tried to "read" braille? I can't make out a thing... but a skilled reader of braille can simply run their finger tips over the "writing" as significant speed and read it perfectly. While I don't think the blind person can "visualise" the raised surfaces, what is clear is that they have a highly developed spacial mapping.

I agree. The person I was debating this with felt that blind people feel braille then represent it visually, and then "read" that visual version like written/printed text. I think this is highly unlikely.

bloodline wrote:
While I doubt you or I could ever understand fully the detail of the mapping, I think you can get the idea of how it works... after all when playing a synth or even typing on the keyboard in front of you or driving a car, you don't need to think about the spacial relationships involved you have a natural ability to co-ordinate without really thinking.

Yes that's true. But is this because of some internalised visual map which helps you to navigate? Think of what happens when you play a new synth, or get a keyboard with a different layout, or drive an unfamiliar car? You have to look around to create a visual map so you can navigate the object. A blind person's equivalent would be to feel their way around, but the question remains as to how their "map" is stored: as a map of touch stimuli, or converted in to a pictorial form? As I said I think the former is the case, and it sounds like you agree, but we can't really know for sure. And that's annoying ;-)

I'll explain myself better...

Well, you only use your spatial co-ordination one way... to find locate something that you are not looking at. That fact that you can do that, proves you have an internal map of everything you interact with, but it's not a map you visualise. You don't because you don't need to. But imagine if you were able to read that map without physically having to touch something... like typing your name on the keyboard without moving your hands... If you try really hard with your eyes closed, you can get a sense of what it must be like... a sort of sensation map... no images involved.

bloodline wrote:
As a fun experiment  blindfold yourself for a week and see how you get on around your house? :-)

Might be a bit of an issue when I need to go to uni. If you don't hear from me for a while, then it's likely I've had a horrible accident at the train station...

I'll keep an eye out on the Darwin Awards web site :-)

bloodline wrote:
Interestingly the part of the brain that deals with spatial relationships is located right next to the visual cortex... The human brain has been well documented in it's ability to reorganise due to damage, especially in neighbouring areas... if the visual cortex is unstimulated I'm sure it will reassign to assist more demanded areas.

Ohhhhh stop giving me things to read about! :lol:

It's a fascinating topic... I think my adolescence was far too lonely... And indeed now... much too lonely :-)

bloodline wrote:
Oh, and I bet A.org is a barrel of laughs for a blind person... :-(

Well there is at least one partially sighted user. ISTR a thread about Amiga accessibility for blind users. But yes, I expect a.org like any text-heavy site is a bit hard work if you can't see. Might be easier to print it out in braille!

As opposed to Picture heavy web-sites which must be insipidly fun for a blind person ;-)

--
moto

[motorollin]

bloodline wrote:
I'll explain myself better...

Well, you only use your spatial co-ordination one way... to find locate something that you are not looking at. That fact that you can do that, proves you have an internal map of everything you interact with, but it's not a map you visualise. You don't because you don't need to. But imagine if you were able to read that map without physically having to touch something... like typing your name on the keyboard without moving your hands... If you try really hard with your eyes closed, you can get a sense of what it must be like... a sort of sensation map... no images involved.

It's hard to do that without resorting to an image, but I can see your point. Makes me think of the sensory feedback which allows you to sense the position of any given body part (snigger). Maybe that's how a blind person stores their mental map of fine motor activities like typing - by storing the various configurations of their hands as detected by sensory feedback.

bloodline wrote:
I'll keep an eye out on the Darwin Awards web site :-)

Obscene response via PM :-P

bloodline wrote:
It's a fascinating topic... I think my adolescence was far too lonely... And indeed now... much too lonely :-)

There are advantages to being lonely, like reading :-) I would quite like a lonely weekend one of these days. Want to borrow my boyfriend for a weekend? I could cram him into a dress and put some lippy on him. You'd never know the difference.

bloodline wrote:

motorollin wrote:
I expect a.org like any text-heavy site is a bit hard work if you can't see.

As opposed to Picture heavy web-sites which must be insipidly fun for a blind person ;-)

Smartarse :lol:

--
moto

[bloodline]

motorollin wrote:

bloodline wrote:
I'll explain myself better...

Well, you only use your spatial co-ordination one way... to find locate something that you are not looking at. That fact that you can do that, proves you have an internal map of everything you interact with, but it's not a map you visualise. You don't because you don't need to. But imagine if you were able to read that map without physically having to touch something... like typing your name on the keyboard without moving your hands... If you try really hard with your eyes closed, you can get a sense of what it must be like... a sort of sensation map... no images involved.

It's hard to do that without resorting to an image, but I can see your point. Makes me think of the sensory feedback which allows you to sense the position of any given body part (snigger). Maybe that's how a blind person stores their mental map of fine motor activities like typing - by storing the various configurations of their hands as detected by sensory feedback.

Yes, yes! Exactly!

bloodline wrote:
I'll keep an eye out on the Darwin Awards web site :-)

Obscene response via PM :-P

:roflmao:

bloodline wrote:
It's a fascinating topic... I think my adolescence was far too lonely... And indeed now... much too lonely :-)

There are advantages to being lonely, like reading :-) I would quite like a lonely weekend one of these days. Want to borrow my boyfriend for a weekend? I could cram him into a dress and put some lippy on him. You'd never know the difference.

Does he cuddle and will he do my laundry...? Sod it, send him round, I'll find a use...

-Edit- Make sure he can speak German... at least a few phrases...

bloodline wrote:

motorollin wrote:
I expect a.org like any text-heavy site is a bit hard work if you can't see.

As opposed to Picture heavy web-sites which must be insipidly fun for a blind person ;-)

Smartarse :lol:

:-D

[motorollin]

It would be interesting to pose all of these theories to a blind person and see which most closely matches their experience.

bloodline wrote:
Does he cuddle and will he do my laundry...? Sod it, send him round, I'll find a use...

He'll do practically anything, though his rates are a bit steep. God I hope he doesn't read this :lol:

bloodline wrote:
-Edit- Make sure he can speak German... at least a few phrases...

He knows some, but learned it from porn. Will that do?

--
moto

[bloodline]

motorollin wrote:
It would be interesting to pose all of these theories to a blind person and see which most closely matches their experience.

Quite!

Find one and ask them... though obviously while we should in theory have the ability to understand how they "see" the world, there is simply no way they can relate to what we see... So I doubt what we are saying would ake much sense... go on describe what it's like to imagine a picture! :-)

bloodline wrote:
Does he cuddle and will he do my laundry...? Sod it, send him round, I'll find a use...

He'll do practically anything, though his rates are a bit steep. God I hope he doesn't read this :lol:

Sigh... I'll get me sock...

bloodline wrote:
-Edit- Make sure he can speak German... at least a few phrases...

He knows some, but learned it from porn. Will that do?

Am besten!

[motorollin]

bloodline wrote:
Find one and ask them... though obviously while we should in theory have the ability to understand how they "see" the world, there is simply no way they can relate to what we see... So I doubt what we are saying would ake much sense... go on describe what it's like to imagine a picture! :-)

Exactly. Also, a blind person might in fact have some visual capacity but how would they know that's what it is? They might experience some kind of imagery to represent objects they can feel in the real world, but never having experienced vision they probably would not label it as such. Though if they do in fact have this capability, they may recognise to some extent the description of a sighted person's ability to represent an object visually.

:crazy:

bloodline wrote:
Sigh... I'll get me sock...

That poor abused thing. Isn't it getting crispy by now? You should be careful - it might become abrasive!

Was that too far?

--
moto

[motorollin]

There was a blind person waiting at the station at Perry Barr today. Was so tempted to ask him about this but I was too shy :oops:

--
moto

[Speelgoedmannetje]

motorollin wrote:

bloodline wrote:
Sigh... I'll get me sock...

That poor abused thing. Isn't it getting crispy by now? You should be careful - it might become abrasive!

There are more threads dedicated to Bloodlines mysterious sock, than there are threads in the very sock itself... :lol: