[accessibleimage] Re: Picture Perception and Interpretation

Dear Lisa,

The questions you raise are highly relevant. I will try to address them as
best I can.

(Lisa's question): 1. Is one of the main points one can take from this
article that it is important to understand the experience and exposure to
abstract information one is designing for?

(My response): Yes, I think this is one of the points. I also know from
experience and other articles that people from different cultures, both
literate and non-literate often can understand and utilize abstractions,
but, not necessarily the abstractions understood and utilized in our modern
Western culture (for lack of a better term). Very many linguists now
understand that children learn language from whole to parts, from context,
and most adults also learn new languages best in this way, with the help of
context. In our culture, we may be used to abstractions, but, they are
really in context. It is very difficult not to put abstract symbols in
contexts that are familiar to us. If we aren't given the context, all of us
will supply our own.

Here, below, are two small excerpts from an article written in the early
1980s that got me started thinking about these things seriously. I posted
this article on this list a while ago.

If Wittgenstein Had Been an Eskimo

Even for profound philosophers, literacy has its limitations

by Edmund Carpenter

NATURAL HISTORY, February, 1980

In the article, Edmund Carpenter discusses a picture that can be interpreted
as either a rabbit or a duck, depending on the outline one chooses to view
as surrounding the main feature.

He says:

"The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein and the art historian Ernst Gombrich
contend that we cannot see both rabbit and duck in a single image
simultaneously. Illusion, Gombrich says, consists in the conviction that
there is only one way of interpreting the visual pattern in front of us.
Although we may switch rapidly from rabbit to duck, we cannot experience
alternative interpretations at the same time. A shape cannot be seen apart
from its interpretation.

Discovering the rabbit in the duck produces, according to Wittgenstein, a
surprise not produced by the recognition of either image alone.

Both men, famous for their analytical investigations, chose the same visual
pun for intensive analysis and they agreed on its interpretation. Moreover,
they invited their readers to play the game themselves and test their
conclusions. But how do people from a different background, say Eskimos,
perceive visual puns? Can they see the duck and rabbit simultaneously?

Visual punning is an ancient art. A carving from the Canadian Arctic, circa
A.D. 1300, simultaneously represents a man in a hooded coat and a dog or,
phrased another way, a dog-man, perhaps one popular in Eskimo tales.

I once showed Dali's Paranoiac Face, with its double image, to several
Eskimos. Painting was alien to them, but visual punning was not; they showed
a craftsman's appreciation of skillful work.

Eskimos love visual puns. So do Melanesians and so did the Aztecs. In our
own culture, these double images were much favored by surrealists and
perhaps have always and everywhere delighted children.

Visual puns vary greatly, but all share one characteristic: each line
simultaneously serves two or more images. That is, several figures occupy
one space or one figure plays several roles in a single space.

... snip

Recently, comparing paintings by blind children with those of seeing
children, an experimenter found the two indistinguishable until the age of
about six, at which point the seeing children moved in the direction of
optical imagery.

..."

(Lisa's question): 2. Is it possible to develop levels of abstraction for
tactile graphic information for the blind?

such as

1. very realistic 3-d models

2. simple 2d drawings

3. 3d drawings, perspective, symbols

Sylvie's note: I want to let you know that I can't read the text for your
number 4 in this question.

(My response): Certainly all of these levels of abstraction for tactile
graphic information can be very helpful for blind people. This is basically
how Bob Marek teaches young children who are blind to understand tactile
graphics. And, I also do some of this with blind adult immigrants and
refugees.

For those children and adults who lost vision after exploring the
environment and being guided in how to interpret what they saw, and who
learned how to interpret pictures in our cultural context, these are
generally very helpful in learning to utilize tactile graphics. And, I
should note here that the majority of blind people in the world have lost
vision after experiencing and learning to use their vision; most blind
people in the world, including in both impoverished and wealthy countries,
began life with vision.

I think that for children and adults who never had enough vision to
experience and learn to interpret pictures, but had some experience
exploring their environments, these levels can also be helpful, although a
little more challenging.

For those who never experienced the process of learning about how to
interpret pictures in our cultural context, these can definitely be helpful,
but should be accompanied when possible by exploration of actual objects.

I think that the amount of free exploration of the environment, and the
amount of adult help with interpretation of the environment are both crucial
for helping children, both fully sighted children, and especially blind
children, in understanding and interpreting drawings and other graphics
later on.

In general, I have found that even fully sighted immigrants and refugees who
come from other cultures, whether they are literate or not, sometimes find
the specific kinds of abstractions presented in instructional pictures and
graphics in U.S. culture to be ambiguous and even confusing. This is even
more the case for blind children and adults who are not used to interpreting
tactile graphics, whether or not they have grown up in our culture.

And, I think that descriptive and instructive captions and other texts are
very important for assisting even those of us who previously had vision and
are picture savvy in the context of this culture, to interpret and
appreciate tactile graphics.

(Lisa's question): 3. And depending upon the culture these can be introduced
differently. Such as in the article, introduction of symbolic information
for the Hmong was confusing. But for someone with say a city background
abstract information, say a tactile map, would be an relatively easy to
understand concept? So in the first case one would introduce first 3-d
models, then simple 2d drawings etc and in the second case, city background,
the information could be more mixed up, because many of the ideas,
abstractions would be known?

(My response): Yes and no. Yes, depending upon the culture symbolic/abstract
information can be introduced differently. But, no, learning how to utilize
maps is something that is very challenging for many people, even those who
are fully sighted and literate. This skill is taught in both elementary and
high school here in the U.S., and some people learn it more than others.
Most of the blind adults I know find reading tactile maps very difficult.
Some of us have experience with maps before losing vision, and are
interested enough to be willing to work on gaining an understanding of
specific maps. We like to get an idea of the general layout of a building or
a college campus or a city, so we make a concerted effort. Most of us can't
use a map of a large area to plan a specific route unless we have some
practice in doing this. But, many blind people who never had experience with
tactile maps as children find them very frustrating.

I teach orientation to rooms and the neighborhood and the city by first
encouraging students to explore a familiar room, then deciding together what
features in the room should be designated on a map, then pasting pieces of
cloth, paper, wax, plastic, etc. representing those features on cardboard.
Then we move on to exploring the floor of a familiar building, and mapping
that. And, then the block, etc. and then we do a basic tactile sketch of the
city.

I have prepared a lesson plan for this process, which I have shared with
teachers working with fully sighted adult immigrants and refugees, and many
have told me that the method works much better than anything they have been
able to devise, such as talking about views from planes as similar to maps
of areas.

And, I think we also need to understand that learning to interpret tactile
graphics is a skill that needs to be learnt just like learning to interpret
visual drawings. So, it has to be related to learning to experience the
world tactilely, just like people really need to learn how to experience the
world visually.

This brings me back to an article I read a number of years ago, about a
highly competent and well oriented independent man who was blind from an
early age, Mike May. The article is, "Sight Unseen" By Michael Abrams.
DISCOVER, June 2002 Reprinted in The Matilda Ziegler Magazine for the Blind,
Vol. 97, No. 3, March, 2003

Even though Mike May had very good orientation skills, was highly competent
and independent, he still needed to learn how to interpret what was
transmitted to his brain from his eye after undergoing restoration of his
vision. Even in the case of sensory experiences that seem to be understood
intuitively, the learning process is really crucial.

One of the challenges of working with adult immigrants and refugees involves
knowing that even with the best methods and the students' strongest
motivation, most adults who never learned literacy as children, whether they
are sighted or blind,  will be slow and insecure readers when they do learn.
Only a few will become proficient enough to truly enjoy reading and writing
for pleasure.

This is definitively a very stimulating subject, and we have so much to
learn. I hope others will chime in.

Take care,

Sylvie

Sylvie Kashdan, M.A.
Instructor/Curriculum Coordinator
KAIZEN PROGRAM for New English Learners with Visual Limitations
810-A Hiawatha Place South
Seattle, WA  98144, U.S.A.
phone:  (206) 784-5619
email:  kaizen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
web:  http://www.nwlincs.org/kaizen/

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