[gui-talk] braille

[tribble]

Good point, but I don't think I do the internal translation into print when 
I'm reading braille -- I pretty much think "t" when I feel that dot 
pattern -- my problem is in identifying whether which dots are there or not. 
I often have to site rubbing my finger around on the braille character a 
split second or more to figure out what I am feeling.  It's the same reason 
I never took to the optacon -- I couldn't tell the shape right away -- it 
just took too long to recognize the character with my finger.
I don't know if this is sensitivity in the fingertips or internal 
processing. Probably the latter and the lack of practice.


Actually this leads to another question that I'd like to run by the list:  I 
was listening to something on one of the discovery channels about the 
difference in the brain between sighted persons and persons blind from 
birth.  I don't know if the guy knew what he was talking about but he said 
that in the blind person, the visual cortex was remapped to handle tactile 
processing.  (I know that the VC is remapped, that is obvious, but I don't 
think that it is known what it is mapped to.)  Anyway, given this, he 
claimed that trying to give vision to a blind-from-birth person would 
actually cause more problems than it would solve.  So is there an actual 
study of brain waves for various activities in a person blind from birth?
Cheers.
--le




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Rick Roderick" <rickrod at insightbb.com>
To: "NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List" <gui-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2008 8:14 AM
Subject: [gui-talk] braille


I changed  the  subject line to  reflect the discussion.

I have a theory, or perhaps, a hyposis, about why braille is usually read
more  slowly by people who  learn it later.

When a person learns  a foreign language, they can be slowed down by
word-for-word translation.  When I took French in high school and college, I
was never able to conquer  this.  I am not discounting Laura's comments
about finger sensitivity, but I  also wonder if  a role is played by the
need, at first, to read the braille and translate it in one's mind to the
print symbol.

Those of us who are congenitally blind did not learn this first.  I know
that  when I hear a word spelled, I  think of it in braille.


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