[bksvol-discuss] Re: Fwd: Fw: If a blind person gained sight,could they recognize objects previously touched?
- From: Cindy <popularplace@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 13:41:10 -0700 (PDT)
Getting a three-dimensional image from a flat picture
depends on the painter's technique, which I can't
explain. Recently, though I saw a flat screen digital
TV in a store--large screen--and I was amazed--it
looked three-dimensional. Our regular TV set doesn't,
really.
Cindy
--- Evan Reese <mentat1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I had heard some of this before, but the bit about
> not being able to extract
> depth from paintings or drawings was new. I can
> resonate with that, as
> while I know intellectually that sighted people do
> it, I find it
> incomprehensible that they can get a
> three-dimensional image from a flat
> picture. I have asked people about how they do
> this, but but they either
> couldn't explain how they do it, or their
> explanations - which I can't
> really recall at the moment - didn't convey anything
> to me. Perhaps that's
> why I can't remember them if there were any. I have
> felt two-dimensional
> raised-line drawings that were supposed to convey a
> three-d image, but found
> them utterly inscrutable.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Cindy" <popularplace@xxxxxxxxx>
> To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>;
> <bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>;
> "Louise" <bookscanner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Thursday, April 20, 2006 7:27 PM
> Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Fwd: Fw: If a blind person
> gained sight,could they
> recognize objects previously touched?
>
>
> >I found this a fascinating article. Is this
> something
> > those of you who are blind already know or feel,
> or is
> > it interesting to you, too?
> >
> > Cindy
> >
> > --- Louise <bookscanner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> >> From: "Louise" <bookscanner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> >> To: "Louise Gourdoux"
> <bookscanner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> >> Subject: Fw: If a blind person gained
> sight,could
> >> they recognize objects previously touched?
> >> Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 21:17:15 -0500
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> PhysOrg.com
> >> Thursday, April 20, 2006
> >>
> >> If a blind person gained sight, could they
> recognize
> >> objects previously
> >> touched?
> >>
> >> By Source: Research/Penn State, By Joe Anuta
> >>
> >> Most people conceptualize the world largely based
> on
> >> sight, and would find
> >> it difficult to function using touch alone. Think
> >> about finding the keyhole
> >> on your car door at night, or locating that light
> >> switch in a dark room.
> >> Even if it's too dark to see, a seeing person
> uses
> >> his or her visual memory,
> >> along with the tactile sense, to navigate the
> >> physical world and accomplish
> >> the task at hand.
> >>
> >> However, the interconnectedness of sight and
> touch
> >> is not a given for the
> >> blind.
> >>
> >> Cathleen Moore, associate professor of
> psychology,
> >> explains that the areas
> >> processing visual and tactile information are
> >> located on the wrinkly,
> >> outermost shell of the brain, called the
> >> neurocortex. "Sight is located on
> >> the back of the brain, and touch along the sides,
> >> near the top."
> >>
> >> A connection was verified between the two senses
> in
> >> sighted people, Moore
> >> says, through a test using functional Magnetic
> >> Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to
> >> analyze brain activity. Without looking, the
> >> subjects described objects they
> >> could only examine with their hands. "Despite
> being
> >> blindfolded, their
> >> visual areas were very active. It's as if they
> >> translated tactile sensations
> >> into visual terms," states Moore. "Obviously,
> these
> >> are integrated."
> >>
> >> But although sighted people can picture tactile
> >> information in their head,
> >> the neurocortex is configured slightly
> differently
> >> for those who can't see.
> >>
> >> "It's not like the visual area just atrophies for
> >> blind people," explains
> >> Moore. Instead, the visual area gets taken over
> by
> >> the tactile. This concept
> >> is called neuroplasticity, the ability of the
> >> neurosystem to reconfigure
> >> itself.
> >>
> >> Because of this different brain configuration,
> blind
> >> people who regain their
> >> sight may find themselves in a world they don't
> >> immediately comprehend. "It
> >> would be more like a sighted person trying to
> rely
> >> on tactile information,"
> >> Moore says.
> >>
> >> Learning to see is a developmental process, just
> >> like learning language, she
> >> continues. "As far as vision goes, a
> >> three-and-a-half year old child is
> >> already a well-calibrated system."
> >>
> >> As an example of the process, she referenced two
> >> case studies where blind
> >> men regained their sight later in life. Their
> >> experiences illustrate some of
> >> the difficulties in making the transition from
> >> blindness to the world of
> >> visual imagery, as well as the surprising
> importance
> >> of one's age at the
> >> onset of blindness to one's successful adaptation
> to
> >> sight.
> >>
> >> One man known as S.B., in a study conducted by
> >> British neuropsychologist
> >> Richard Gregory and reported in the journal
> Nature,
> >> lost his sight at 10
> >> months old, only to regain it 50 years later
> through
> >> cornea transplants. He
> >> could recognize several objects despite never
> having
> >> seen them, but other
> >> aspects of vision left him bewildered, Moore
> says.
> >>
> >> S.B. could tell time from the hands of a clock
> from
> >> previously feeling an
> >> open-faced watch, and identify cars and trucks
> from
> >> having repeatedly washed
> >> his relative's car.
> >>
> >> "I would infer that he just formed a generally
> >> applicable spatial
> >> representation of these, so conceptualizing the
> >> position of hands on a clock
> >> or the shape of a car didn't matter if it came
> >> through visual or tactile
> >> sources," Moore says. "When he gained vision, it
> was
> >> easier for him to
> >> interpret them."
> >>
> >> "What he wasn't good at was drawings. He
> basically
> >> couldn't extract depth
> >> from them," she adds. For S.B., a painting of a
> >> countryside landscape was
> >> simply a collage of colors and a drawing of a
> cube
> >> simply a series of lines
> >> on a page. Gregory's study tentatively attributed
> >> this problem to a part of
> >> the brain inappropriately scaling objects,
> causing
> >> S.B. to misjudge their
> >> size.
> >>
> >> The other man, American Michael May, whose case
> was
> >> reported by CBS News in
> >> 2003, went blind at 3 1/2 and regained sight at
> 43.
> >> Surprisingly, although
> >> losing sight much later in his childhood, he had
> a
> >> harder time adjusting to
> >> vision than S.B. "He can't recognize the faces of
> >> his wife and children,"
> >> Moore says. "One possible explanation for this is
> >> that while May was blind,
> >> he was essentially trying to compare tactile
> >> sensations to visual images he
> >> obtained as a child, instead of forming a general
> >> spatial representation
> >> like S.B., who could only recall the colors red,
> >> black, and white.
> >>
> >> So while we might think giving sight to the blind
> >> would be akin to taking
> >> off a blindfold, it is not that simple. The
> >> acquisition of sight for S.B.
> >> and May brought hardship along with opportunity.
> >> "After surgery, some people
> >> who regain their sight can become very
> depressed,"
> >> Moore states. "For S.B.,
> >> he expected the visual world to hold all of this
> >> promise, but it didn't. It
> >> was dull, and bland." S.B. never learned to read,
> >> and sometimes wouldn't
> >> bother flipping on the light at night.
> >>
> >> Although S.B. died two years after his surgery,
> May
> >> has since gotten better
> >> at understanding his vision, confirms Moore. "He
> is
> >> learning to see like an
> >> adult learns a second language, slowly and
> through a
> >> lot of hard conscious
> >> work. It's very unlike the way a child learns a
> >> language -- quickly and
> >> seemingly effortlessly. The intriguing difference
> >> between S.B.'s and May's
> >> cases implies that there are critical periods for
> >> learning to see, just as
> >> there are heightened periods for language
> learning."
> >>
> >>
> >> http://www.physorg.com/news64769651.html
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
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> >> Release Date: 4/19/2006
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
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