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What Do Blind People Actually See?

nautil.us

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Re: What Do Blind People Actually See?

#51

Post by eranation »

bramd wrote: post #35

First of all, be aware that the group that's actually totally blind is relatively small. Most people who are legally blind have some form of light perception, or can see something. I've been totally blind since birth. Blind people can have a good or bad sense of direction, just like their sighted peers. I think the device described in the article might be more useful on short distances and less relevant for knowing w…

> I've been totally blind since birth.

Please forgive me for the naive question, I'm probably full of misconceptions about blindness, but out of pure curiosity, how do you read and write so well without seeing? Is the technology so advanced today? Are you using a screen reader and a regular keyboard? (e.g. typing and than playing it via the reader) how do you know if you made a typo? (e.g. who's and whose sound the same)

You really didn't have any typos, and as well your indentation and styling are perfect (much better than me but I'm not a native English speaker)

Can you read and write code without seeing? Are there any blind programmers that you know of.

again asking out of pure naivety

tl;dr, I'm impressed with your reading and writing considering that you said your are totally blind, and curious how do you do it. (I always was afraid of going blind for some reason, and afraid I will never be able to write code again)

Re: What Do Blind People Actually See?

#52

Post by einhverfr »

jareds wrote: post #2

As someone who has been blind since birth this is accurate. I know that people who go blind later in life continue to dream in color since they have the memory of color to reference while I do not. I wonder if someone who goes blind later in life experiences things differently, possibly by automatically filling in what they assume they would see based on what they know of there surroundings from there other sences.

Also since blindness is a lack of sight as we know it, it is a very large category of phenomenon. Someone who goes temporarily blind from a blow to the head may experience something differently from someone with retinal damage. Someone who has never been able to see may experience things differently from someone who has recently suffered blindness as a result of injury or illness (and these themselves might have different experiences).

Re: What Do Blind People Actually See?

#53

Post by einhverfr »

jsmeaton wrote: post #39
StavrosK wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard it described that blind people see what we see out of our left eye when we only have our right eye open. It's not blackness, it's just no perception.

I've been struggling to comprehend what "nothingness" would look like, but I think this comment has helped. It's very hard to imagine pure blindness.

But that's a question of focus. If you close your one eye and ask "what do I see out of it" you get a different answer than if you don't ask the question.

Re: What Do Blind People Actually See?

#54

Post by eric_h »

tempestn wrote: post #46
StavrosK wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard it described that blind people see what we see out of our left eye when we only have our right eye open. It's not blackness, it's just no perception.

That is a very interesting observation! When we close both eyes, we perceive a blackness, or perhaps some sort of reddish/purplish glow of light through eyelids, or the after-effect of light. However, by keeping one eye open, it seems any signal from the closed eye is overridden, so you really don't perceive anything there.

Agreed. Definitely just spent a few minutes contemplating if I was seeing anything through my closed left eye. It seemed as if the only way I could turn my left eye "on" when it was closed was by also closing my right eye.

Re: What Do Blind People Actually See?

#55

Post by spydum »

gohrt wrote: post #7

Strange that the article doesn't mention the blind spot that everyone as. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_spot_(vision)

On the blind spot test, cover the other letter with your fingertip for same effect, and watch your finger disappear. For some reason this is far more impressive to me.

Re: What Do Blind People Actually See?

#56

Post by jes5199 »

kazinator wrote: post #45
gliese1337 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not blind, but I do occasionally get migraines with visual auras, as do my wife & mother. Exactly once in my life that I recall, I had a migraine that caused total perceptual blindness (oddly, this has also happened exactly once to my wife, before we knew each other). It's extremely odd- one's visual field (at least in our cases) steadily contracts, until there's just nothing left. It's not an annulus of darknes…

I've had a few auras, and my experience was different. There was an ever increasing spot of vision missing, which came to engulf half my vision, but of course I'm aware that the missing part is cutting into my field of vision; I could still map the places in the field of vision where I should see external objects, and imagine something superimposed there. I would say that it was similar to (but eventually larger than…

"scintillating scotoma" is the one with the shimmering edge. I've had that a couple times.

Re: What Do Blind People Actually See?

#57

Post by jareds »

lisper wrote: post #50
jareds wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t have any meaningful concept of color. I do have some light perception so assume that white is what I see if you shine a light in my eye, black is what I see when all the lights are turned off and gray is the middle ground when there are some lights turned on but not enough for the light to actually be painful. Intellectually I realize there are other colors but the only way I can explain them is in reference…

If you have some light perception, what happens if you shine different colors of light in your eye?

Nothing, it looks the same to me.

Re: What Do Blind People Actually See?

#58

Post by seanp2k2 »

einhverfr wrote: post #53
jsmeaton wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been struggling to comprehend what "nothingness" would look like, but I think this comment has helped. It's very hard to imagine pure blindness.

But that's a question of focus. If you close your one eye and ask "what do I see out of it" you get a different answer than if you don't ask the question.

It's the difference between int(0), None, and undefined :)

Re: What Do Blind People Actually See?

#59

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #28
gliese1337 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not blind, but I do occasionally get migraines with visual auras, as do my wife & mother. Exactly once in my life that I recall, I had a migraine that caused total perceptual blindness (oddly, this has also happened exactly once to my wife, before we knew each other). It's extremely odd- one's visual field (at least in our cases) steadily contracts, until there's just nothing left. It's not an annulus of darknes…

It's extremely odd- one's visual field (at least in our cases) steadily contracts, until there's just nothing left. It's not an annulus of darkness closing in, it's juts nothing- the field you can see is smaller, and there's still nothing outside of it, just like there always isn't. This is the first time I've heard of anyone else experiencing this phenomenon besides myself. Have there ever been any long-term effects…

I'm sorry to hear that. My wife has a rare brain disease and unfortunately, it's something she's all too familiar with. If it's happening to you without corresponding migraines (or even with), see a neurologist, there may be something wrong. Her neurologist regularly sends her for opthalmologist exams just in case and they never find anything wrong.

Re: What Do Blind People Actually See?

#60

Post by marcosscriven »

hentrep wrote: post #5
jareds wrote: post #2

As someone who has been blind since birth this is accurate. I know that people who go blind later in life continue to dream in color since they have the memory of color to reference while I do not. I wonder if someone who goes blind later in life experiences things differently, possibly by automatically filling in what they assume they would see based on what they know of there surroundings from there other sences.

I've always wondered how someone born blind is able to wrap their mind around the concept of color. It appears you've done so -- how would you describe color?

This reminds me of musicians, particularly those with perfect pitch, who talk of 'colours' of keys. While it's not a direct analogy, perhaps one way to think of colour, if you've never seen it before, is to think of different wavelengths of sounds being a bit like different wavelengths of light.
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