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
Spradley, T. S., & Spradley, J. P. (1978). Deaf Like Me. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University.
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
[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
Individuals who are deaf or are hearing impaired are faced with many problems in today’s world. There are so many tasks and activities that are done today that deaf or hearing impaired people may have difficulty doing because of there handicap. There handicap used to stop them or inhibit them from doing something that they are interested in or there friends and neighbors would do. However in today there are new and different technologies, that help the deaf and hearing impaired in the activities in which they want to participate in which is hard for them to take part in because of there handicap. Technology is used to help with everyday tasks in the lives of deaf and hearing impaired individuals. With out this new technology which is being invented everyday, deaf and hearing impaired people may be considered to have a handicap which prevents them from certain activities, but this is not the case anymore, now these people just have different obstacles which through the use of technology they are learning to over come. They can do anything that regular normal range of hearing individuals can do, due to the new technology being invented everyday.
Lane, H. (1984). When the Mind Hears: A History of the Deaf. [Kindle]. Retrieved from http://www.randomhouse.com
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).
Sensation refers to the process of sensing what is around us in our environment by using our five senses, which are touching, smell, taste, sound and sight. Sensation occurs when one or more of the various sense organs received a stimulus. By receiving the stimulus, it will cause a mental or physical response. It starts in the sensory receptor, which are specialized cells that convert the stimulus to an electric impulse which makes it ready for the brain to use this information and this is the passive process. After this process, the perception comes into play of the active process. Perception is the process that selects the information, organize it and interpret that information.
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...
Rauschecker, J. P. (1993). Auditory compensation for early blindness in cat cerebral cortex. The Journal of Neuroscience, 13(10), 4538.
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.
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,
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.
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.
Blindness is a severe or total change of one or more of the vision basic features that affects the ability to identify color, size, distance, shape, position or movement. It may occur from birth (congenital) or later due to organic or accidental causes. In some cases, blindness may be associated with loss of hearing (deaf-blindness) and/or other disabilities (Sá, 2007, WHO 2016).