[nfbwatlk] {Disarmed} How do blind persons compensate for thiskind of sighted interactions?

Tue Dec 2 16:52:42 UTC 2014

Jim,
You make some good points.
I can't say I always remember all the proper reactions or postures, but that 
I was sighted for 23 years before losing my sight. Helps with facial 
expressions and reactions.
Sometimes they happen automatically, and give away more than I want. smile.
I am sure you impress the croud with your boice when you are in concert.
Take care, and keep up the music entertainment.
Julie
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Portillo via nfbwatlk" <nfbwatlk at nfbnet.org>
To: "Don Mitchell" <donmi at q.com>; "NFB of Washington Talk Mailing List" 
<nfbwatlk at nfbnet.org>
Cc: "Mike Freeman" <k7uij at panix.com>
Sent: Sunday, November 30, 2014 7:10 AM
Subject: Re: [nfbwatlk] {Disarmed} How do blind persons compensate for 
thiskind of sighted interactions?


> Interesting thread, Don.  I hear this a lot as well and seeing as how I 
> have many friends, I see just how much they depend on sight for 
> everything, including communication.
>
> In fact, this has been a topic of conversation between my music partner 
> and me when it comes to song delivery.  There are certain songs where Bill 
> has emphasized a line he's singing or a message he's trying to get across 
> by looking directly at a person or focusing on a group of people.  And you 
> know, I know plenty of other musicians who will look at and focus on 
> different parts of the room...certain rows or quadrants.
> I try and do the best I can, by facing people and I try turning my head 
> toward different areas of the room.  I doubt it's effective, but nobody 
> tells me otherwise.
>
> I was, or probably still am, like Mike in thinking that I can try making 
> my conversation as interesting as possible so as not to need any sight. 
> Again, I don't know that always works because so many people painfully 
> depend on their sight even to do things like give an example of how big or 
> small something was or how something they're describing looked or 
> whatever.
> It's tough.
>
> One on one is fine because you can just face the person.  One thing I 
> cannot do is give different types of looks to someone.  I can't glare or 
> question or give an approving look with my eyes the way others do, so 
> either my whole face has to get involved (which makes subtlety 
> nonexistent) or don't try at all.
>
> Sorry for the ramble.
>
> Jim
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone 6!
>
>> On Nov 27, 2014, at 9:26 AM, Don Mitchell via nfbwatlk 
>> <nfbwatlk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>>
>> Thanks Mike,
>>
>> In the class I took the statistic was 90% of what we learn is through 
>> sight
>> and of that 90% of interpersonal communication was through the eyes.
>>
>> I will never forget when I had some usable vision 26/100 seeing a very
>> beautiful young woman who had stunningly bright eyes. Even I could see 
>> them
>> from an acceptable distance. They were stunning. Sure made me wish I 
>> could
>> get a lot closer to that beautiful person.
>>
>> When I was young and very shy and insecure I could never figure out why I
>> couldn't draw attention to myself. I am learning that self-esteem, 
>> courage,
>> and just down right curiosity to know people has helped me to overcome
>> shyness and insecurity.
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Mike Freeman [mailto:k7uij at panix.com]
>> Sent: Thursday, November 27, 2014 7:52 AM
>> To: 'Don Mitchell'; 'NFB of Washington Talk Mailing List'
>> Subject: RE: [nfbwatlk] {Disarmed} How do blind persons compensate for 
>> this
>> kind of sighted interactions?
>>
>> Don:
>>
>> I have two answers or observations:
>>
>> (1) Bear in mind that the course was taught by a sighted person who buys
>> into the notion that sight is *the* essential communication medium and 
>> that
>> anyone who lacks it is severely handicapped. This hits me about like the
>> unprovable assertion one hears all the time in everything from optics
>> classes to social courses that seventy percent of knowledge comes through
>> the eyes. You and I know, of course, that this is utter nonsense!. For 
>> one
>> thing, how does one quantify communication? For another, might not how 
>> one
>> gains knowledge be based, in part, upon the individual? But I'll leave 
>> that
>> debate for another time. But since the sighted are the majority, there is 
>> a
>> certain validity to their assertion that eye contact is supremely 
>> important.
>> But take it with a grain of salt or the telephone would never have gained
>> popularity.
>>
>> (2) What do we do? WE do the best we can. We face the speaker, keep our 
>> head
>> up (not down on our chests) and try to make our conversation sufficiently
>> interesting that eye contact won't matter. And we use other techniques 
>> such
>> as using other people to inform us who is trying to get our attention or 
>> who
>> is in a room.
>>
>> Above all, we acknowledge that we live in a sighted world, do what we can 
>> to
>> deal with it and stop worrying about it. After all, it's not a situation
>> that's going to change and I dare say we can largely compensate. (You 
>> never
>> heard anyone say to FDR: "Just think what you could do were you not
>> paralyzed!").
>>
>> Incidentally, at a Youth Slam or some such event a few years ago where 
>> there
>> was a simultaneous seminar for parents of blind children, Denise 
>> Mackenstadt
>> said there was a discussion wherein parents asked why their kids kept 
>> their
>> heads down. They discovered they could *hear* better if their heads were
>> down.
>>
>> Mike Freeman
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: nfbwatlk [mailto:nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Don
>> Mitchell via nfbwatlk
>> Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2014 10:39 PM
>> To: 'Debby Phillips'; 'NFB of Washington Talk Mailing List'; 'Corey
>> Grandstaff'
>> Subject: [nfbwatlk] {Disarmed} How do blind persons compensate for this 
>> kind
>> of sighted interactions?
>>
>> Since I took a communications class and learned how important eyes are in
>> communication I have wondered how we as blind persons compensate, adapt, 
>> or
>> develop accommodations for this kind of sighted interactions. What are 
>> your
>> thoughts?
>>
>>
>>
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>> http://www.sciencealert.com/images/articles/boy-eyes_1024.jpg
>>
>> Image: Nadezda Cruzova / Shutterstock.com
>>
>> How humans learn to subconsciously connect with their eyes
>>
>> Researchers have studied the way infants 'read' emotions in people's eyes 
>> to
>> discover that at just seven months old, most people have already figured 
>> out
>> how to derive meaning from these incredibly complex organs.
>>
>> BEC CREW   24 NOV 2014
>>
>> Facebook Icon9.1kTwitter Icon41Email Icon
>>
>> READ MORE
>>
>>
>>
>> By decoding the brain activity of infants that were subconsciously 
>> exposed
>> to various expressions, an international team of psychologists has
>> demonstrated how humans learn to communicate using their eyes alone.
>>
>> When it comes to expressing our emotions - intentionally or not - there's
>> nothing quite like our eyes. Whether we're experiencing feelings of joy 
>> or
>> fear, or a deep sadness or boredom that we can't help but give away, our
>> eyes are the windows to our souls, and as humans, there's not a whole lot 
>> we
>> can do to change that.
>>
>> But let's not lose perspective here,
>> <http://online.wsj.com/articles/how-humans-learn-to-communicate-with-their-e
>> yes-1416414194?mod=e2tw> as Alison Gopnik points out at The Washington 
>> Post,
>> eyes are really just slightly squishy globes of jelly-goo surrounded in
>> special nerves, fibres and lens cells. They're incredibly complex organs,
>> yes, but how can they express so much without us even trying?
>>
>> New research by psychologists Sarah Jessen from the Max Planck Institute 
>> in
>> Germany and Tobias Grossmann of the University of Virginia in the US has
>> discovered that not only do we learn to read and respond to what we see 
>> in
>> each other's eyes at an extremely young age, but we do so subconsciously 
>> in
>> order to survive.
>>
>> Humans are the only primates with a large, highly visible sclera - the 
>> white
>> part of the eye - which makes them easier to track and read than the eyes 
>> of
>> many other animals. Imagine trying to read the emotions of a hamster 
>> without
>> any physical cues other than what's going on
>> <https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTV2qgCAdecYHWFfoq9Gvd
>> sTEHgAMJ_hmVa8jygnu1ixaB9kzzzvQ> in those black, beady pools. Those 
>> adorable
>> little enigmas.
>>
>> But most people, even when they're very young, tune in and focus on 
>> another
>> person's eyes when they're trying to connect and read their emotions and
>> intent. Grossmann and Jessen decided to test this ability in several very
>> young babies to see just how early on in a human's life meaning can be
>> derived by reading another person's eyes.
>>
>> Working with seven-month-old babies, Grossmann and Jessen exposed their
>> young subjects to several schematic pictures of human eyes showing either
>> fearful expressions - wide-eyed plenty of visible sclera - or neutral,
>> dead-eyed expressions. The eyes would either be looking front on at their
>> infant audience, or to the side. The infants were also shown images of 
>> eyes
>> where the colours had been reversed, so the eye whites would be black, 
>> and
>> the pupils white.
>>
>> Each image in the series was shown to the infants for just 50 
>> milliseconds,
>> which is enough for them to subconsciously register what they saw, but 
>> not
>> long enough for them to really think about it. And all of this was 
>> happening
>> while the infant subjects were wearing
>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroencephalography> EEG caps, which are
>> equipped with an array of sensors that detect and record brain signals as
>> they occur.
>>
>> "The babies' brain-waves were different when they looked at the fearful 
>> eyes
>> and the neutral ones, and when they saw the eyes look right at them or 
>> off
>> to one side,"
>> <http://online.wsj.com/articles/how-humans-learn-to-communicate-with-their-e
>> yes-1416414194?mod=e2tw> reports Gopnik at The Washington Post. "The
>> differences were particularly clear in the frontal parts of the brain. 
>> Those
>> brain areas control attention and are connected to the brain areas that
>> detect fear."
>>
>> But when the babies were shown the reverse-colour images, their brain 
>> scans
>> revealed that they did not differentiate between the fearful and neutral
>> expressions. This suggests that the position and area of the sclera is
>> crucial for how we interpret meaning in each other's eyes, especially 
>> when
>> we're young.
>>
>> "Their brains clearly responded to social cues conveyed through the eyes,
>> indicating that even without conscious awareness, human infants are able 
>> to
>> detect subtle social cues,"
>> <https://news.virginia.edu/content/whites-their-eyes-study-finds-infants-res
>> pond-social-cues-sclera> said Grossmann in a press release.
>>
>> "This demonstrates that, like adults, infants are sensitive to eye
>> expressions of fear and direction of focus, and that these responses 
>> operate
>> without conscious awareness,"
>> <https://news.virginia.edu/content/whites-their-eyes-study-finds-infants-res
>> pond-social-cues-sclera> he adds. "The existence of such brain
>> pond-social-cues-sclera> mechanisms in
>> infants likely provides a vital foundation for the development of social
>> interactive skills in humans."
>>
>> The results were published in
>> <http://www.pnas.org/content/111/45/16208.short> Proceedings of the 
>> National
>> Academy of Science.
>>
>> Sources:
>> <https://news.virginia.edu/content/whites-their-eyes-study-finds-infants-res
>> pond-social-cues-sclera> The University of Virginia,
>> <http://online.wsj.com/articles/how-humans-learn-to-communicate-with-their-e
>> yes-1416414194?mod=e2tw> The Washington Post
>>
>>
>>
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