[nabs-l] More Ideas Needed for my Research Project

[Katie Wang]

Hi, Arielle,
  As I have said before, this is a very interesting study! I can't
really think of a third task at the moment, but for the cane travel
task, I thought that an interesting alternative may be teaching
blindfolded participants how to navigate going up or down steps with a
ccane. As you must know from experience, there is a common
misconception that blind people can not use stairs safely and will
easily fall, so showing the participants that this can be effectively
done with the use of a cane may bring a more significant increase in
their appreciation of what blind people can learn through training.
The use of sound cues is also a good one, although the counting-door
technique seems a bit too intuitive to me.
Hope this helps!
     Katie


On 8/24/11, Arielle Silverman <arielle71 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
> As I've mentioned here a few times, i'm doing a research project for
> my Ph.D. dissertation investigating how disability simulations affect
> nondisabled people's attitudes toward people with disabilities. In the
> experiment I'm developing now, we want to compare a standard blindness
> simulation (where people put on sleepshades and have to do some basic
> tasks) with an enhanced simulation where people learn very basic
> nonvisual techniques for handling the tasks. We want to show people in
> the enhanced simulation condition that the tasks are more manageable
> with the nonvisual techniques, and see if that makes them more able to
> appreciate the adjustment that real blind people experience through
> time and training. We need ideas for simple tasks that sighted people
> could do blindfolded by using a nonvisual method that they can learn
> fast without much practice. For example, one of our tasks is pouring a
> glass of water as full as possible without spilling; in the enhanced
> simulation condition, we will teach the participants to use their
> finger as a guide to know when the glass is full. We also want to
> incorporate some very basic cane travel and teach participants to
> either use a sound cue (i.e. a fan) as a navigational aid, count doors
> on one side of the hallway, or both. Can any of you think of a third
> task that's (a) possible but tough to do blindfolded and (b) possible
> to do better with a nonvisual technique that's simple and easy to
> learn?
> Thanks!
> Arielle
>
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