[nabs-l] Awkward Situations: What would you do?

Mon Sep 21 01:21:51 UTC 2009

Most sighted people just think I am angry or something based off my facial 
expression. I am just neutral, neither happy nor mad or any ware else on the 
emotional spectrum. Some people don't like it when I don't make/keep eye 
contact. Sometimes people don't talk to me, because they think I am too 
unreadable at times.

As a side note, how do you think wearing dark sunglasses all the time 
affects others reaction to you? In my experience my dark glasses and 
occasionally emotionless body language create a lot of oukword situations.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Teal Bloodworth" <tealbloodworth at gmail.com>
To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list" 
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Sunday, September 20, 2009 9:00 PM
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Awkward Situations: What would you do?

> Honestly, yes i have had vision before but my eye movement via TBI isnt 
> the best however people say through my facial expressions and ability to 
> look in the direction of the person thanks to depth perception people say 
> i dont even look blind. I am not sure of what a typical blind person looks 
> like but i believe all of these reflexes you are describing comes 
> naturally from your environment and maturation during infancy. We are 
> actually talking about this in developmental psych. Reflexes like 
> reaching, grabbing and walking and talking is a distinct developmental 
> stage according to piaget. Some say we learn these through environment and 
> social interaction while others say it is a specific cognative change in 
> our biological being.
>
> I agree with yu that it is a very interesting question and this topic is a 
> personal interest. As for showing the world when you are pissed off or sad 
> or even happy i dont think you learn from actually seeing other peoples 
> responses to an action. I believe you learn these emotions through 
> personality development of what actions give you these feelings, then 
> these feelings are visually portrayed naturally.
>
> Dont quote me on anything, this is my opinion of the answer to your 
> question...i am a social work/psychology major
>
>            -Teal
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Joseph C. Lininger" <jbahm at pcdesk.net>
> To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list" 
> <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Sunday, September 20, 2009 5:29 PM
> Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Awkward Situations: What would you do?
>
>
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>> Hash: SHA256
>>
>> Teal,
>> LOL That's funny. Honestly, I've never had much sight and never had
>> muscle control over my eyes. So I don't know much about looking at other
>> people, eye contact, that sort of thing. I have been told it's
>> disconcerting for a person to never make eye contact, and that it's even
>> more disconcerting for a person to make eye contact constantly and never
>> break it. I'm afraid I never learned the finer points though.
>>
>> This is somewhat related, and I'd be curious to know what the
>> psychologists and sociologists among you think. I'll need to lay a
>> little ground work for the more general question, so bare with me. I've
>> known for some time that my emotions and moods  are communicated
>> visually, at least sometimes. But I had something happen that actually
>> got me curious about trying to find out exactly how it happens. We had a
>> router go down in a data center at a company I had been working for a
>> few months ago. I'd had a bad day the day before trying to get
>> everything working, and that router went down at about 4 am and took the
>> entire company off the Internet. Well, I came out of my hotel room and
>> one of the first things the guy driving me to the data center said was,
>> "wow Joe, you look really pissed off. Like maybe you'd like to kill
>> someone." I hadn't given any hint to being pissed off, though I was. I
>> wasn't even aware of it being communicated in my looks, I'd tried to
>> look pleasant and ready for another day despite the promise of yet more
>> problems.
>>
>> After this, I became curious about exactly how expressive or not I was
>> with body language, facial expressions, etc. I asked people who had
>> known me for a while, mainly family members about it and they all said I
>> was in fact expressive visually, at least to a point. My sister even
>> provided a running commentary one day for a few minutes on what my face
>> was doing while conversing with people at her house. So, here's my 
>> question.
>>
>> I always thought that at least to a point people learned these
>> expressions and that mostly by observing those around them and learning
>> what they meant. I knew basic stuff like a smile or frown didn't work
>> that way, and I could even understand certain reflexive expressions. For
>> example, stiffening in response to fear or anger. However, I thought the
>> more detailed stuff, arching eyebrows, moving of the eyes with certain
>> expressions, that sort of thing was learned behavior. Well, seeing in
>> how I can't see others doing these things and never have been able to,
>> how would I have possibly picked them up? Have any experiments been done
>> regarding such things? And more interesting... Some stuff, such as
>> nodding, shaking the head, or shrugging, I had to be specifically taught
>> those while I didn't other expressions. Does anyone have any ideas on
>> what governs what visual cues are natural or learned in spite of lack of
>> vision and which must be picked up visually?
>> - --
>> Stress (N): The condition that occurs when ones mind overrides the
>> body's natural desire to reach out and slap the hell out of someone
>> who desperately deserves it.
>> Joseph C. Lininger, <jbahm at pcdesk.net>
>>
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
>> Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32)
>>
>> iQEcBAEBCAAGBQJKtqy5AAoJEMh8jNraUiwqY60IALYQNeXJZERY61pNgDFV2sWX
>> DKqZ/byNBPAMmQJ5A4ptHoKLpBcYu1iRylKmm+3ch3hhYDdBT/mswkev5eCi5rWV
>> /5xQQWftxoUnOG0uILdlJFojtcZJHny8OK9eskikf3YC8JFDeoOoFEUrKYjx8YBc
>> sEpJyUPGYcmXbSjCskxTHFjfW2eqwAvZJzzPiG9e9HeXa/0Ze8a3HF0i8hhUZrSW
>> +g6Y9ICCvgz8gHS6Bsmyi9Bn3s0ZDPlhuBdjIBAfzVDnLDHVhQmfAz6618GTi0ix
>> 5zrxd8v7yyt8tTRagfgugApM6DNsSyosw81YFCuLax55dzfYRfk+yhBX6AN1N+w=
>> =gV8x
>> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> nabs-l mailing list
>> nabs-l at nfbnet.org
>> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nabs-l_nfbnet.org
>> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for 
>> nabs-l:
>> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nabs-l_nfbnet.org/tealbloodworth%40gmail.com
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> nabs-l mailing list
> nabs-l at nfbnet.org
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nabs-l_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for 
> nabs-l:
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nabs-l_nfbnet.org/kramc11%40gmail.com 