Hi Cara, Exactly. I think some blind people don't realise how important facial and eye contact is with the sighted speaker and are confused when the sighted person starts reacting strangely like raising there voice etc. I doubt the sighted person speaking is even aware of their own reactions. If they are speaking to someone sighted, and the person they are talking to isn't paying attention, just by raising there voice the sighted person will turn their face to look right at them. When a blind person doesn't know what to do the sighted person gets louder or assumes the blind person is deaf because he/she isn't paying attention, or at least appears to them not to be paying attention. As a result both people walk away from the encounter confused. As I mentioned in my previous post when I was beginning to lose my sight and was enrolled in the local blind school I would get really agitated at the other blind students when they didn't look at me. It has taken me years to understand why I got so agitated, and the reason is pretty simple. From the moment a sighted person begins to comunicate they automatically want to look for non-virble comunication like body language, facial expressions, and eye contact. When that is removed it's like having part of your comunication network go on vacation, and it is usually a sign someone is not paying attention to you. It's kind of like the unwritten law of sighted comunication that facial expressions and eye contact should be maintained at all times.
Cara Quinn wrote: > It's not inexplicable, but way off topic. lol! If you're sighted, > and someone doesn't acknowledge you by looking at you, then it looks > as if they aren't aware that you're there... Thus a sighted person > may speak loudly to a blind person, as if to get their attention or > make them aware so to speak... If a blind person 'looks' in the > direction of a sighted person, then you might notice more of a > recognition / awareness on the part of the sighted person, that the > blind person is also aware of them, and the sighted person may not do > the whole yelling / raising the voice thing... > > HTH > > Smiles, > > Cara :) > --- Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
