Interesting Question: How would describe color to a blind man?

[urbantechie]

How? Just curious.

 

[snow patrol]

I wouldn't bother trying.

 

[Spindler]

tell him its a different shade of black that he's used to seeing

 

[urbantechie]

LOL spindler!!

 

[eia430]

hmm, interesting question... my best guess would be for him to think of colors in terms of sound or rather a tone. His world of sound would be the closest thing to our visual sense. I bet on a busy street corner he could discern a lot about it from what sounds he hears, more so than we could. If he thinks of colors as different tones he would not be too far off from our perception of it. Different wavelengths of light = different colors different wavelengths of sound = different tones.

 

[Isla]

I'd describe them as emotions...

Black would be anger
Red would be passion
Yellow would be happiness
Blue would be peacefulness

and so on....

 

[jonnyGURU]

Isla: I thought red would be anger. "When one sees red".

Anyhoo....

Anyone remember the movie, "Mask". He used objects to describe colors. He described white as soft and used cotton balls. He then said that the clouds were like the cotton balls.

Very cool movie.

 

[jaydee]

Same way you describe music to a deaf man. Duh!

 

[Isla]

jonnyGURU...

Yeah,that's a problem with my strategy. I'd have to tweak it a bit. Great movie (the Mask), BTW.

 

[BuckMaster]

On a serious note:

I just thought of this same question the other day. My son is only 10 months old and is Visually Impaired and Im woundering how I would ever explain colors to him when he gets older.

eia430,
Isla,

Cool thoughts!

 

[jonnyGURU]

Not "the Mask". That's with Jim Carrey.

I said "Mask", as in with Cher.

 

[Isla]

LOL jonnyGURU, you must think I am an airhead!

I like to think of it as the Mask with Eric Stoltz. Was Sam Shephard in it,too, as Cher's boyfriend? And who played Bulldozer?

 

[jonnyGURU]

Wasn't that the big guy from BTO?

 

[Sluggo]

It might be understandable in terms of tempature as well, but it would only work with basic colors.

Red...very hot
orange....hot
Yellow....warm
purple....cool
blue......cold
white.....icy cold

Something like that?
Just dont try to assign a temp to TAUPE or some crap like that.

 

[Balt]

Hmmmmmmm...

Do blind people DREAM in color? Do their dreams consist of images at all?

THAT is what I want to know.

 

[Sephiroth_IX]

Probably emotions here, but what about the dreaming thought. Lets get into that.

 

[Train]

just like sounds, except they are silent.

 

[Isla]

yeah sluggo, that's the idea...

Water is cool (blue), fire is hot (red)... Even the feel and smell of grass could be described as 'green'.

To tell you the truth, that is something I might enjoy doing if I ever decide to go back out into the workforce again... or maybe I could go volunteer somewhere. I always find people appreciate me SO much more when I am volunteering... I always get yanked around when there is a paycheck involved.

But I digress.....

Buckmaster, there is SO much you can show your son, so much richness he will have in his life! I can see fairly well, but I am still visually impaired (I have monocular vision, which makes for crappy depth perception) and I have to say, I have learned to "see" much better than the average person because of it. Get the right people (compassionate, loving, creative) working with him and he won't miss a thing.

 

[Isla]

Oh, Balt, I have a children's video (an HBO special called Goodnight Moon) where a little blind boy talks about what he sees in dreams.

He doesn't see in dreams.... He feels. It's a great video, BTW, so any parents out there reading this, I highly recommend it. It's all about dreams, from the POV of little kids. Fabulous stuff.

 

[Balt]

Isla, thanks for clearing that up. That question was really going to get on my nerves if it went unanswered.

 

[lowtech1]

My Industrial Design class have researched, and failed to develop educational toys for the deaf & blind children between the age of 8~12 years old. (The most difficult & earliest age for deaf & blind conceptual learning)

Colours is a relatively easy concept to describe to the blind. Most blind people would have partial understanding of the colour concept by the age of 6~8 (almost a compleate undertanding by early teen), because they can see flashes of colours when the eyes are physically manipulate, due to the chemical reaction in the eyes/brain.

The hardest concepts to describe is time, above/below & infront/behind...these concepts will take most blind people till they?re in their early to mid 20s to understand.

The above/below & infront/behind concept is very difficult to explain to the blind, because they believe that they have supernatural powers like a magician. They believe that they create others (friends & family) out of their imagination. (A blind person believes that make the spoon disappear if they put a spoon on a table out of their reach, then they magically summon it when they pick it up.)

It is not fun to be blind, but most bind person will tell you that they rather be blind than deaf.

 

[eia430]

lowtech, interesting comment.. "most blind people would much rather be blind than deaf"

The deaf kids that I'm big brother to have usher's syndrome. Those with loose their hearing at an early age 1-5yo then their vision turns into tunnel vision at puberty. Then at 30 or so they loose their vision entirely. I've seen a few programs about usher's and those that have lost both hearing and vision say that they could live without hearing, but not vision. Interesting that blind people feel differently. I wonder if we as humans depend more one one or the other or if the deaf or blind just value what they had more because they don't understand the value of the other.