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

Sun Nov 30 15:10:42 UTC 2014

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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> C ScienceAlert Pty Ltd. All rights reserved.
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> http://www.sciencealert.com/images/articles/boy-eyes_1024.jpg
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> 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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