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Hey there and welcome to Life Noggin,
How do the blind perceive the world?
How different is it from the way a person with sight does?
Let’s find out!
To begin, there are different levels of blindness we need to be aware of.
Legal blindness refers a person’s vision being 20/200 or less, with normal vision being
20/20.
A 20/200 vision means you would have to stand 20 feet away from an object to see it as clearly
as a person with 20/20 vision could see it from /200/ feet.
People can also have partial vision loss, where they experience things such as cloudy
or fuzzy images from conditions like cataracts, or lose central vision, but maintain a normal
peripheral vision like with macular degeneration.
Total blindness refers to the complete inability to see anything with either eye.
But what does that mean for their perception of the world?
While it can be difficult to exactly know what another person experiences, there are
different perceptions that have been reported by individuals with total blindness.
One is that a sort of image can still be formed using the other senses, just without /any/
color.
And when I say without any color, I mean /even/ black and white.
This was reported where the person was blind from an extremely early age.
Another perception is that they might see a bright and colorful landscape of ever-changing
light.
This view was reported by some people that went blind later in life and still remember
what it was like to experience sight.
Does lacking sight increase the other senses?
It used to be thought that people without sight would have a stronger sense of smell,
but modern evidence seems to prove otherwise.
Using both subjective and objective testing methods, a German study found no measureable
difference between the sense of smell of blind participants and those with sight.
However, it does seem to ring true that lack of sight leads to a better sense of touch.
Blindness, especially from birth, has been shown to lead to faster and more sensitive
tactile abilities.
So it looks like Daredevil’s incredible sense of balance and acrobatics isn't that
far off!
When do I get my superhero show?
I look great in tights.
Some blind individuals have even been able to master echolocation to “see” in their
own way.
Normally reserved for talking about animals like bats and dolphins, echolocation is where
echoes and sound waves are used to determine where objects are.
Some people can use this technique by making clicking noises with their tongues to build
a spatial representation of the world around them.
Not only can echolocation give people information regarding size, shape, and even /texture/
of objects, but it was recently found that when processing echoes, the brain uses regions
typically devoted to /vision/.
Maybe our visions are more than just what our eyes tell us?
It also seems that people with total blindness still react to light.
Our brains can detect light through a photoreceptor in the ganglion cell layer of the retina,
which is different from the rods and cones we use to see.
A recent study was done where participants with total blindness were able to correctly
determine when a blue light was on or off.
They also were shown to be more attentive in response to flashing lights.
Furthering the importance of this, it gives validity to the theory that light stimulates
brain activity and gives enhanced performance on cognitive tasks, whether a person is blind
or not!
I guess I should probably stop working third shift at my night club, Block Party.
Maybe one day we’ll be able to know exactly how each of us experience this wonderful world!
What would you most like to experience with a different perception?
Let me know in the comments down below!
Make sure you come back every Monday for a brand new video.
As always, I’m Blocko and this has been Life Noggin.
Don’t forget to keep on thinking!