We as human beings utilize the five senses to process information about our surroundings. These senses help keep us safe. For example, we use our sense of touch to avoid picking up a hot pan, while our senses of smell and taste prevent us from cooking any rotten food in the pan. Our sense of sight allows us to see an oncoming train, while our sense of sound makes it possible to hear the train’s horn. Unfortunately, some people are born without the sense of sight, and many others may lose the sense at some point in their lives for various reasons. It is estimated that 1.3 million people in the United States are legally blind, and of the 1.3 million, only 1% are born without the sense of sight (National Federation of the Blind, 2017). Although …show more content…
The study involved three different groups, people who were sighted, people who were “early blind” which consisted of individuals who were either born blind or who lost their sense of sight within the first two years of life, and people who became blind later in life. The study consisted of the subjects listening to two tones, challenging them to determine whether the second tone was higher or lower in pitch than the first. The results concluded that there were no significant differences in the ability to hear the notes between the sighted individuals and the people who became blind later in life. However, the participants who were born without the sense of sight or who became blind early in life performed better than both other …show more content…
G., & Renier, L. (2010). Do People Who Became Blind Early in Life Develop a Better Sense of Smell? A Psychophysical Study. Journal Of Visual Impairment & Blindness, 104(6), 369-379. Gandhi, P. H., Gokhale, P. A., Mehta, H. B., & Shah, C. J. (2013). A Comparative Study of Simple Auditory Reaction Time in Blind (Congenitally) and Sighted Subjects. Indian Journal Of Psychological Medicine, 35(3), 273-277. doi:10.4103/0253-7176.119486 National Federation of the Blind. (2017). Blindness and Low Vision Fact Sheet. Retrieved from https://nfb.org/fact-sheet-blindness-and-low-vision Neurological Institute / McGill University. (2004, July 23). The Blind Really Do Hear Better. ScienceDaily. Retrieved from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/07/040723093712.htm Society for Neuroscience. (2010, October 28). Blind people perceive touch faster than those with sight. ScienceDaily. Retrieved from
Some might refer to "seeing" as simply to watch with a naked eye, while some would refer to it as being able to witness an event and recall upon it later. In fact, some would even go as far as that if someone hasn't witnessed something visually, he basically hasn't "seen" it. However, in his essay "The Mind's eye," Oliver Sacks seemingly breaks the norm. In his essay, the blind's adaptation to their disadvantaged is talked about. Yet, it seems like those who were victims of the neurological disorder seem better off blind. Furthermore, another question hanging in the balance is whether the blind people are actually "adapting" to their new lives or rather "reforming" how they will live? Through various stories of blind people, he is able to
The brain is one of the most enigmatic organs in the human body. It can adapt to all types of physiological conditions and be programmed to see the environment in a certain type of way, whether it is deliberate or not. Oliver Sacks discusses the state of being blind and the role of sensory functions in his essay, The Mind’s Eye. He discusses the concept of connections and perceptions, in which the former leads to the latter. A connection is the interaction between the senses simultaneously, while perception is defined as the interpreted reality caused by the connection of the available senses. Perception is partially constructed by one’s environment, which allows the creation of different interpretations of reality. In blind and sighted individuals,
[20] Reid, I., Young, A.W., Hellewell, D.J., 1993. Voice recognition impairment in a blind Capgras patient. Behavioural Neurology 6, 225–228.
Braille Institute: Empowering visually impaired people to live fulfilling lives. Braille Institute. 2010. Web. 22 Nov. 2010
Spradley, T. S., & Spradley, J. P. (1978). Deaf Like Me. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University.
When I started thinking about what could happen to someone facing a real change like recovering his sight, in the first place I tried to imagine what could it be to be blind, and what are the consequences of blindness on the person. I understood that blindness wasn't a bad thing or a disease. In fact, blind people are not living in a poorer condition than seeing people. It is true that they are bereft of one of their senses, but they are developing their other senses just like touching,
Auditory localization is the ability to recognize the location from which a sound is emanating (Goldstine, 2002). There are many practical reasons for studying auditory localization. For example, previous research states that visual cues are necessary in locating a particular sound (Culling, 2000). However, blind people do not have the luxury of sight to help them locate a sound. Therefore, the ability to locate sound based only on auditory ability is important. It is also important to study different auditory processes. For example, when studying a way for a blind person to maneuver through an environment, it is helpful to know that people can most accurately locate sounds that happen directly in front of them; sounds that are far off, to the side, or behind the head are the least likely to be properly located (Goldstein, 2002).
Rauschecker, J. P. (1993). Auditory compensation for early blindness in cat cerebral cortex. The Journal of Neuroscience, 13(10), 4538.
As Table 1 shows, the mean reaction time to visual stimulus is greater than the mean reaction time to auditory stimulus. The chi-squared value of 9.600 in Table 2 allows us to reject our null hypothesis that there is no difference between auditory and visual reaction times. This result is consistent with our predicted outcome and it also supports Brebner and Welford (1980). Reaction time to a stimulus depends on many factors, including the reception of the stimulus by the eyes, the transmission of a neural signal to the brain, muscular activation, and finally, the physical reaction to the stimulus (Pain and Hibbs, 2007). The reaction times to auditory stimulus were shorter than to visual stimulus, implying that the auditory stimulus reaches the motor cortex
I chose this particular topic to write about because I find the subjects of senses and perceptions interesting. Furthermore, there are a plethora of scientific and scholarly sources of information on the topic. One such source is a journal article documenting psychophysical tests conducted on both sighted and blind participants in the attempt to gain information regarding improvements in the blind study groups’ sense of smell (Cuevas,
When people hear the word “deaf” many times they think of their grandparents or other elders who have lost their ability to hear due to old age. However today for every 1,000 children, at least 1 is considered to be deaf or heard of hearing (Honig, 177.) Deafness is a disability that is easily overlooked and misunderstood because it is not a disability that is easily observed. Helen Keller once said that, “Blindness cuts people off from things. Deafness cuts people off from people.” When a person is blind or need glasses society easily recognizes that in some cases special accommodati...
Many people do not know a great deal about the teaching of the blind and deaf. There are many well known deaf blind people; one of them is Laura Bridgman. She was born on December 21, 1829, and at 2 years old, she was diagnosed with scarlet fever. This resulted in the loss of her sight, hearing, smell, and almost all taste. The only sense Laura had remaining was her sense of touch (Perkins). She was the first blind and deaf person to learn a language. The way Laura Bridgman was taught is a phenomenal story.
Vision is the learned ability to see for information and performance; it allows us to understand things that we cannot touch, taste, smell or hear. 20/20 vision does not mean perfect eyesight. 20/20 vision simply means that at a 20 ft. distance a person is able to see a certain letter than an average eye should be able to see at that distance. You can have 20/20 vision and lack the abilities to use your two eyes together as a team, to judge distances, to identify colors and to coordinate your eyes with hand and body movements. About four in ten people have "perfect" vision.
According to the literature, 80% of the human relationships with the world is using sight. It is essential to have all the visual sensory apparatus (eyes, optic nerves, brain optic pathways and the occipital visual cortex) to live fully in our society, emotionally, socially and professionally (Brasil, 2008). The vision loss is partially offset by other senses such as hearing, touch, smell, and taste. Thus, the visually impaired people perceive the world around them through these remained senses (e.g., Braille reading) (Rangel,
Blindness does not mean that the child is totally without usable vision. Most of blind children have varying amounts of vision, which can be quite helpful. “Legal blindness” is a term you may hear. It means that a child has 10% or less of normal vision. Teachers need to know that many factors affect what, and how much, a child may see at any particular time. Type of eye condition, fatigue, lighting, excitement, etc. all affect a partially sighted child’s vision.