Blind children's language: resolving some differences

1984 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 645-664 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elaine S. Andersen ◽  
Anne Dunlea ◽  
Linda S. Kekelis

ABSTRACTAlthough the role of visual perception is central to many theories of language development, researchers have disagreed sharply on the effects of blindness on the acquisition process: some claim major differences between blind and sighted children; others find great similarities. With audio-and video-recorded longitudinal data from six children (with varying degrees of vision) aged 0; 9–3; 4, we show that there ARE basic differences in early language, which appear to reflect differences in cognitive development. We focus here on early lexical acquisition and on verbal role-play, demonstrating how previous analyses have failed to observe aspects of the blind child's language system because language was considered out of the context of use. While a comparison of early vocabularies does suggest surface similarities, we found that when sighted peers are actively forming hypotheses about word meanings, totally blind children are acquiring largely unanalysed ‘labels’. They are slow to extend words and rarely overextended any. Similarly, although verbal role-play appears early, attempts to incorporate this kind of language into conversations with others reveal clear problems with reversibility – specifically, the ability to understand the role of shifting perspectives in determining word meaning. Examination of language in context suggests that blind children have difficulties in just those areas of language acquisition where visual information can provide input about the world and be a stimulus for forming hypotheses about pertinent aspects of the linguistic system.

2009 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 578-585 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael C. Frank ◽  
Noah D. Goodman ◽  
Joshua B. Tenenbaum

Word learning is a “chicken and egg” problem. If a child could understand speakers' utterances, it would be easy to learn the meanings of individual words, and once a child knows what many words mean, it is easy to infer speakers' intended meanings. To the beginning learner, however, both individual word meanings and speakers' intentions are unknown. We describe a computational model of word learning that solves these two inference problems in parallel, rather than relying exclusively on either the inferred meanings of utterances or cross-situational word-meaning associations. We tested our model using annotated corpus data and found that it inferred pairings between words and object concepts with higher precision than comparison models. Moreover, as the result of making probabilistic inferences about speakers' intentions, our model explains a variety of behavioral phenomena described in the word-learning literature. These phenomena include mutual exclusivity, one-trial learning, cross-situational learning, the role of words in object individuation, and the use of inferred intentions to disambiguate reference.


Author(s):  
Ralph Schumacher

The aim of this paper is to defend a broad concept of visual perception, according to which it is a sufficient condition for visual perception that subjects receive visual information in a way which enables them to give reliably correct answers about the objects presented to them. According to this view, blindsight, non-epistemic seeing, and conscious visual experience count as proper types of visual perception. This leads to two consequences concerning the role of the phenomenal qualities of visual experiences. First, phenomenal qualities are not necessary in order to see something, because in the case of blindsight, subjects can see objects without experiences phenomenal qualities. Second, they cannot be intentional properties, since they are not essential properties of visual experiences, and because the content of visual experiences cannot be constituted by contingent properties.


1998 ◽  
Vol 60 ◽  
pp. 47-52
Author(s):  
Anita van Loon-Vervoorn ◽  
Loekie Eibers

Blind children acquire their mother tongue in a relatively 'decontextualized' way, as compared to their sighted peers. Many word meanings which sighted children learn in a predominantly visual experiential context, have to be verbally explained and defined to blind children. In consequence, blind children may be deficient in the more experientially based aspects of word meaning, but may be aheadof their,sighted peers in their acquisition of the more verbally based meaning relations between words. Our findings indicate that blind children do not seem to be 'ahead' of sighted children in the knowledge about verbally based relations but rather in the accessibility of the relations which they have in their lexicon.


2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-28
Author(s):  
Fahriany Fahriany

Comprehension is making a sense out of text. It is a process of using reader’s existing knowledge (schemata) to interpret texts in order to construct meaning. Many reading experts agree that the schema theory is one of the reasonable theories of human information processing. Schemata, the plural of schema, are believed to be the building blocks of cognition. This paper discusses the role of readers’ preexisting knowledge on linguistics code as well as readers’ knowledge of the world (schema), which for the case of reading has similar importance of the printed words in the text. It is argued that the more non visual information the reader posses, the less visual information is needed. For teaching and learning, teachers are expected to use different strategies in order to deal with different students’ preexisting knowledge and schema to maximize students’ learning.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yusuke Nakashima ◽  
So Kanazawa ◽  
Masami K. Yamaguchi

AbstractRecurrent loops in the visual cortex play a critical role in visual perception, which is likely not mediated by purely feedforward pathways. However, the development of recurrent loops is poorly understood. The role of recurrent processing has been studied using visual backward masking, a perceptual phenomenon in which a visual stimulus is rendered invisible by a following mask, possibly because of the disruption of recurrent processing. Anatomical studies have reported that recurrent pathways are immature in early infancy. This raises the possibility that younger infants process visual information mainly in a feedforward manner, and thus, they might be able to perceive visual stimuli that adults cannot see because of backward masking. Here, we show that infants under 7 months of age are immune to visual backward masking and that masked stimuli remain visible to younger infants while older infants cannot perceive them. These results suggest that recurrent processing is immature in infants under 7 months and that they are able to perceive objects even without recurrent processing. Our findings indicate that the algorithm for visual perception drastically changes in the second half of the first year of life.


Author(s):  
Zozulia I.Ye. ◽  
Stadnii A.S.

The article offers experimental material on methods of teaching global reading to foreign students, which was used by teachers-speakers of Vinnytsia National Technical University. Global reading involves presenting the student with a whole word and I is designed for visual perception and the ability to memorize visual information. In this way, the foreign student does not read the word in letters, but perceives it as a picture. The student reads in Ukrainian at once in words. However, unlike an image that depicts a particular object, it contains a generalized representation of the object, that is, it has a certain meaning. It was found that this method is especially helpful for students who use the hieroglyphic writing system in their native language.During the traditional analytical-synthetic reading, the student must first learn sounds, letters, then sequential compound reading and finally – merged reading of words. Learning to read analytically is often associated with difficulties, as it involves visual perception, concentration, and analytical-synthetic mental activity. As a result students spend more time and effort.First, students read familiar tokens that start with different letters, from short to long. Then move from words to phrases, and then from phrases to reading texts. The page can contain 2–3 sentences in large font. Up to 20 such sentences should be read per day. Since foreign students enter universities after studying the Ukrainian language, it is desirable that these sentences (texts) should be of a scientific style.Global reading should not be limited just to demonstrating and naming picture words. Tasks can be varied and carried out in the form of a game. The article gives examples of games and tasks that were used in our work with foreign students in order to consolidate knowledge.The advantages of using the method of global reading in the process of learning Ukrainian as a foreign language are established. This method helps students understand language as a holistic system and observe the paradigmatic relationship between its units, more quickly master reading, enrich vocabulary, take an active part in the learning process. Students’ own results significantly motivate them to learn the language, as they notice it from the first days of study, and the opportunity to use knowledge in learning and life.Key words: foreign student, second foreign language, non-traditional methods, flash-cards, game forms. У статті запропоновано експериментальний матеріал із методики навчання іноземних студентів гло-бального читання, який використали викладачі-мовники Вінницького національного технічного універси-тету.Глобальне читання передбачає представлення студентові цілого слова й розраховане на зорове сприй-няття та здатність до запам’ятовування візуальної інформації. У такий спосіб іноземний студент не читає слово по буквах, а сприймає його як картинку й читає українською мовою одразу словами. Однак на відміну від зображення, на якому представлено якийсь конкретний предмет, воно містить узагальнене уявлення про об’єкт, тобто має певне значення. З’ясовано, що цей метод особливо ефективно допомагає студентам, в яких у рідній мові використовують ієрогліфічну систему письма.Під час традиційного аналітико-синтетичного читання студент повинен спочатку засвоїти звуки, букви, потім послідовне поскладове читання та врешті – злите читання слів. Навчання аналітичного читання нерідко пов’язане з труднощами, оскільки передбачає і зорове сприйняття, і концентрацію уваги, й аналітико-синтетичну розумову діяльність. У результаті студенти витрачають більше часу й зусиль.Спочатку студенти читають відомі їм лексеми, які починаються з різних літер, від коротких до довших. Потім переходять від слів до фраз, а далі від фраз до читання текстів. На сторінці може бути розміщено 2–3 речення шрифтом великого розміру. За день студенту варто прочитати до 20 таких речень. Оскільки іноземні студенти після вивчення української мови вступають до університетів, то бажано, щоб ці речення (тексти) були наукового стилю.Глобальне читання не варто обмежувати демонстрацією та називанням слів, відтворених на флешкартках. Завдання можна урізноманітнити й проводити в ігровій формі. У статті наведено приклади ігор і завдань, які використовували в нашій роботі з іноземними студентами з метою закріплення знань.Установлено переваги використання методу глобального читання в процесі вивчення української мови як іноземної. Цей метод сприяє тому, що іноземні студенти розуміють мову як цілісну систему й спостерігають парадигматичні відношення між її одиницями, швидше опановують читання, збагачують словниковий запас, беруть активну участь у процесі навчання. Значно мотивують до вивчення мови власні результати, які студенти помічають уже з перших днів навчання, та можливості використати знання в навчанні й житті.Ключові слова: іноземний студент, друга іноземна мова, нетрадиційні методи, флешкартки, ігрові форми.


Author(s):  
Tom McLeish

The first mode of imagination—the visual—is shared by art and science. The chapter starts with an account of the history of visual perception, working though the ancient theory of ‘extramission’, because it sheds light on the role of the mind’s active projection of visual impressions on the world in the interpretation of incoming images. The commonality of scientific and artistic visual imagination is partially to be found in mappings between spaces of three to two dimensions, exemplified perfectly by astronomy, and the work of medieval painter Giotto. Comparisons of the creative process in a recent astrophysical discovery are made with a contemporary artist (Graeme Willson) and through a detailed study of a lesser-known work by Monet.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 67-83
Author(s):  
Muborak Khafizovna Khamidova ◽  

Introduction. In the language system of the peoples of the world, deopoetonyms - words that express the name of natural phenomena - have a special place. Research on the role of deopoetonyms in speech discourse with language, the basis of their origin, the features of their use is important in the study of the history of language, in determining its social significance, so much attention is paid to their collection and study. Research methods. In determining the place of deopoetonyms in the French and Uzbek languages in the linguistic system, ideographic bases, artistic and aesthetic functions in speech, lexical-semantic, linguostylistic features comparative-typological, synchronous-descriptive, system and component analysis, classification methods can be used.


Artnodes ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor Flores

Although the invention of the stereoscope in 1832 shed new light on the anomalies of vision and on the constructive role of the mind in visual perception, this became no obstacle to its scientific uses throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. On the contrary, combined with photography, the stereoscope embodied both the imperialist politics of the 19th century and its scientific ideology. These pairs of twin images perfected photography as an accurate and credible scientific instrument and gave explorers the chance to map, calculate and “grab the world in an image”. The use of stereo photography in geodesic and topographic fieldworks is one of the best evidences of such scientific practices, largely overlooked by stereo photography studies. Here, we introduce the stereoviews by Portuguese explorers such as Francisco Afonso Chaves, an early-20th-century Azorean naturalist, and analyse a particular series of Verascope glass plates which represent theodolites photographed during his fieldwork. The identification of common uses of theodolites in the stereo collections of other explorers suggests the advantage of expanding fieldwork to the laboratory, a fact David Brewster (1856) would naturally recognise as a “rational pleasure”.


1980 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 903-912 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernard Amblard ◽  
Abel Carblanc

In a previous report (Amblard & Crémieux, 1976) we demonstrated that the maintenance of postural equilibrium, measured with the subject in Mann's stance on a foam rubber support, was significantly more difficult under stroboscopic rather than normal lighting conditions. The most plausible cause of the difficulty is the subject's loss of visual perception of movement as a result of the stroboscopic lighting. The present study was designed to look at this factor under normal lighting conditions. Also, the relative contributions of foveal and peripheral vision were assessed. During stance, the subjects (5 women and 6 men, aged from 25 to 55 yr.) viewed either a horizontal or a vertical rectangular grating. With horizontal lines, the visual perception of lateral movement is minimized. Lateral acceleration was measured at three anatomical levels: ankles, hips, and head. The horizontal stripe condition was significantly less effective than the vertical stripe one for maintenance of balance, both for measurements at the head level only and for values averaged from all three levels. Balance was significantly impaired with foveal vision alone compared to full vision or to peripheral vision alone, for measurements from each of the three levels. We conclude that the visual perception of movement is a very important factor in the maintenance of the equilibrium, peripheral vision playing the major role, and foveal vision only a supplementary one.


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