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sequoias said:
That's because blind people usually have more senstive sense of touch than deaf or hearing people.
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well, it's not so much that we have a higher developed sense of touch. it's the fact we use touch so much more than the average sighted-hearing or deaf person that we learn how to use it more effectively than they do.
 
Berry said:
So if I go blind tomorrow all the work callouses on my fingers will disappear over night and all my fingers will be soft and sensitive enough to do this?
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nope. wouldn't it be nice if that were the case? <smile>
 
So...they feel more and they're forced to pay more attention to the surroundings by feeling?
 
sequoias said:
So...they feel more and they're forced to pay more attention to the surroundings by feeling?
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yes and no. yes, we are forced to pay more attention to our surroundings (particularly when someone is newly blind), but we use our sense of touch more.
 
Hear Again said:
yes and no. yes, we are forced to pay more attention to our surroundings (particularly when someone is newly blind), but we use our sense of touch more.
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Ahhh okay...it just baffles me how they can read brialle pretty fast. If I was blind, I would probaby understand how it's done. :P
 
sequoias said:
Ahhh okay...it just baffles me how they can read brialle pretty fast. If I was blind, I would probaby understand how it's done. :P
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<smile> most blind people can read braille at a pretty fast clip. since i learned braille as a child, i can read over 100 words per minute.
 
sequoias said:
So...they feel more and they're forced to pay more attention to the surroundings by feeling?
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I think that is pretty close.

I think a person just does whatever it takes to survive. If I had been blind you can bet I would not have quit learning braille until I learned it. Reading is important to me. If I were deaf I would start staring at people's lips like you would not believe.

When something becomes that important to you you stick with it no matter what until you get it right. Outsiders see the results but not the work you put into it.
 
Berry said:
I think that is pretty close.

I think a person just does whatever it takes to survive. If I had been blind you can bet I would not have quit learning braille until I learned it. Reading is important to me. If I were deaf I would start staring at people's lips like you would not believe.

When something becomes that important to you you stick with it no matter what until you get it right. Outsiders see the results but not the work you put into it.
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Yeah...when you lose one of the sense...you have to do this to survive and communicate with people.
 
So the number of dot combinations is limited (I forgot the math I need to figure it out) so you use the same dot combos for math and music as for the alpha-numeric.

So what you are telling me is you have to make a brain switch in order to understand what you are reading.

How hard is that to do?
 
Berry said:
So what you are telling me is you have to make a brain switch in order to understand what you are reading.
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Yes, exactly. It's actually not as hard as it sounds. For example, ( and ) have one meaning in English but another meaning in math.
This (parenthetical information) has one meaning where as the equation x (x + 1) = 25 has another. And in both cases we use parentheses.

The brain is excellent at assigning the same word or symbol completely different meanings in different contexts. <smile>
 
Berry said:
So the number of dot combinations is limited (I forgot the math I need to figure it out) so you use the same dot combos for math and music as for the alpha-numeric.

So what you are telling me is you have to make a brain switch in order to understand what you are reading.

How hard is that to do?
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nemeth and braille music notation do not use the same dot combinations. they are completely different.

a brain switch would be an accurate description for one who is just learning any one of the braille codes, but not for one like myself or nika who are already familiar with more than one type of braille code.

since i've never been able to read print, i don't know anything different than braille so learning grade I, II, III, nemeth and braille music notation wasn't difficult at all.
 
i also wanted to mention that nemeth uses the lower part of the cell for numbers wheras grade II braille doesn't except in instances where punctuation or dropped (double) letters are used.

for example, a period or dropped d. (as in paddle)
 
Nika said:
The brain is excellent at assigning the same word or symbol completely different meanings in different contexts. <smile>
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this is true. a period (dots 2-5-6) means something completely different when it is used at the end of a sentence than when the same dot combination is used as a dropped (double) letter d.
 
Haha, I was just going to post that example but you beat me to it.

I was trying to say before that for example, 2-5-6 which is dis- or dropped D in grade 2 braille would be 4 in Nemeth, but it's still the same raw combination. So when reading Nemeth, you would process 2-5-6 as 4 on its own (without a number sign).

Is that accurate?

(Sorry I don't know Nemeth yet.)
 
Nika said:
My bad, Hear Again. For some reason I thought they did. Is Nemeth based on the 6-dot cell?
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letters in nemeth are those of standard braille, but nearly every other cell has a different meaning than in standard braille. nemeth numbers for the digits 1-9 are the letters a-i except that they are dropped one row.
 
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