Do Blind People Actually Hear Better Than Sighted People or is This Just a Hollywood Myth

[@TodayIFoundOut]

This video is brought to you by Raycon, earbuds with great sound at a great price. Check them out at buyraycon.com/brainfood

[@TheCiroth]

Damn it Simon, how can I claim first if you've posted before it was live?!

[@PGar58]

I don’t have Raycon buds but I have a number of off-brand earbuds. For the most part they are of excellent quality and bring something different to the table at a fraction of the cost of name brand buds. You’d be pleasantly surprised.

[@augsdoggs]

Opaque Motives Hear clearly stated “when talking about deaf people”, before giving the information. Are you deaf?? Sorry. I couldn’t resist.

[@zredband]

Irony writ large

[@EndlessSurprisesSD]

On the subject of deaf people needing to be vocal in their formative years before gaining hearing, would it matter what language you listened to? Say growing up speaking Sudanese, then learning your words in Ukrainian? Or is it just learning to form words?

[@JennyMorash]

As a blind person, and for those who really prefer the anecdotal: yup. The phrase I use when asked about this (and I get asked this a lot) is: “I don’t hear any better than you, but I do listen better than the average person.” It is absolutely a learned skill. I have always been visually impaired, but not always blind. An example of what I can hear: yesterday, I walked into the massage clinic where I work for the first time since lockdown began. The lobby now has a new plexiglass shield over the front desk, and when I was perhaps two or three feet away, I could hear that it was there. Not because it made a sound, but because it completely changed the sound landscape of an area I was very familiar with. I hope that makes sense. Thank you so much for doing this one, Simon.

[@Mr-Damage]

My mum was blind and she could hear if we moved the furniture..

[@ensap28]

Hi Jenny! I have a question about Internet use and whatnot. How do you do things such as "browse" on KZbin or similar sites? Is there a braille guide to show you everything that's being offered/recommended or is there some audio component to help you find things? Thanks!

[@WildPork]

@@ensap28 if websites are well-written/designed, then they can use "screen readers". Read up on a11y (which is a stupid abbreviation of accessibility; 11 because 11 characters have been removed)

[@DavidJones-tp7td]

Thank you for sharing. Just for clarity, I don't dismiss science but personal accounts of the experience often reveal other aspects. For example your account helps me understand why I like to listen to new places as well as look at them.

[@simoneriksson8329]

Intresting:)

[@shaunw9270]

When I was a kid , I knew an old blind man at church who was an excellent Jazz drummer. I had heard my parents mention that blind people often have better hearing and are often great musicians because of this , citing the great Ray Charles , and Stevie Wonder.... So I asked him. He smiled , chuckled and said something like " I could concentrate better than the other guys in the band because I wasn't distracted by that sweet blonde at the front " . I had to mention this , he was brilliant and I hadn't thought of him in years.

[@eliscanfield3913]

I love that answer!

[@walterscogginsakathesilver6246]

Thanks

[@porkeyminch8044]

Sounds like he was a pretty cool guy.

[@TheBlindAndTheBeautiful]

Bro i'm blind and a guitar in multiple styles of band. I'll tell you now musical skill does not equate to blind plus instrument equals Steevie Wonder. I straight up sucked something aweful for a long time before i really buckled down and learned my theory and a ton of jazz stuff. But yeah that guy was spot on! I worked with an incredibly attractive singer for several years but did not get distracted by the view while playing

[@knottheory79220]

My uncle was blinded as an adult. He explained it like this: He didn't hear any better after losing his sight, but over time, out of sheer necessity, he learned to pay closer attention to what he heard. Things like clicks, taps, echoes, footsteps etc. that he used to ignore he paid more attention to. He also learned that the sense of touch is more sensitive than he realized. He could with amazing accuracy distinguish between different denominations of US dollar bills, the exception being if you gave him brand new bills it would throw him off. He also developed an uncanny sense of timing and direction. He was the best navigator in a car you could imagine. He would navigate like this: "Back out of the driveway to your left. Straighten up, you're going to go forward for about two minutes until you hit three bumps. After you hit the third bump turn right..."

[@keatomic]

That is really interesting, I never thought about car navigation like that but it makes sense. thanks for sharing.

[@613aristocrat]

In leveling terms, his Sense stat didn't increase, but his Hearing and Feeling Skills did.

[@freyashaw9958]

I have been visually impaired all my life and I can definitely relate to that.

[@ericvulgate]

@Deborah Shaw ridges exist on coins as a holdover from when coins were made of precious metals, so people could not shave the coins.

[@silkwesir1444]

@@ericvulgate yes, but we are not getting rid of that holdover because of helping sight impaired people distinguish the coins. Look at the Euro coins, a currency which was put in rather recently. It's not made of precious metals, there were no reasons to put on ridges. But they have intentionally put in different kinds of ridges especially with helping distinguish the coins by touch in mind.

[@mindofthelion712]

11:33 When I was a child, I was mute. My mother and I learned rudimentary sign language to communicate. I also learned to read and write at a very young age, so I wound up writing before I could fluently speak. My inner voice was more like an inner typewriter (I joke that I think in Comic Sans). Now I am relearning sign language, and I think in a mixture of speech, text, and ASL.

[@phantom_blade555]

So are you still mute if you aren’t how did they fix this this is very interesting to me I am blind so I can’t really imagine losing anything else to tell you the truth it kind of scares me

[@walterscogginsakathesilver6246]

Wow

[@porkeyminch8044]

I'm curious, are you blind or deaf or anything? Or does your condition only prevent you from speaking?

[@mindofthelion712]

@@porkeyminch8044 I am studying sign language. I am hearing and sighted, but for a while my parents thought I was deaf. I can speak fluently now, but until I was 5 I only said 4 words.

[@LindaGailLamb.0808]

@@mindofthelion712 🤣🤣🤣 My family *wished...* I was the one who *never* shut up !! Apparently I talked early... and never stopped.

[@christines3638]

I have an 11 year old collie who lost her eye sight due to collie eye disease at around 8 months old. Unfortunately, CEA is fairly prevalent in the collies, with many dogs, at least in the show lines, being carriers. My dog has 2 parents with " go normal" eyes. She does rely on her other senses more than my other dogs. She has a fantastic memory and never misses the dog door. She takes the same path around the yard and is confident enough to trot. Put a little vanilla extract on the ball and she can play fetch. Shes great at hide and go seek, better than the sighted dogs. I am pretty sure she's using touch through her paws, smell and memory to navigate her environment. Interestingly, she copies the sighted dogs in doing stuff like looking out the window. The other dogs seem to understand she can't see and incorporate it into thier games. She does not know they can see.

[@gerthjaanimae6222]

As a person who is blind sinse birth I would like to point out that even if we may have a bit better hearing, meaning that our brains can process more information coming from our ears, it also comes with some caveats. The main thing, at least for me is that the sense of hearing can quite easily get overloaded. Especially in the crouded places it can get quite difficult to understand what the heck is going on. It can be so called remedied with some alcohol, because as many of you are aware of, it slows down the brain activity and thus lessens the feeling of overload, but of course in the long run it is not the healthiest solution. Although in some places, such as the bar or a pub environment it works quite well, hehe. Otherwise it is quite good video at explaining things and I do consider sharing it with my sighted acquaintances when I do not happen to have time to explain the topic my self. :)

[@johnba291972]

Hi Gerth, I was just wondering would you have by any chance ever used any psychedelics like LSD or mushrooms before? And if so what was the experience like for you as a non-sighted person. I've used acid many times and one of my favorite things to do on it is to go into a completely dark room and let the trip just go wild with my mind filling in the blanks for the visual deprivation. Obviously that sort of thing is only for the strong minded as some would easily panic in such a situation. But for me it very quickly starts going into a complete cartoon like world that my imagination creates and then pretty much anything you can think of is possible. Flying through space which soon turns into the most amazing fractals and wormhole type experiences, strange alien like creatures, I even can imagine myself transforming into other things even into a gas like existence where I float away and dissipate into the atmosphere, or even just my entire body morphing into weird shapes and growing new parts from all over my body. I could go on all day about some of the amazing things I've experienced doing this. when you mentioned alcohol it just made me curious what it would be like for somebody who was completely blind having the same experience. I don't know if that sort of thing would be for you to be honest and I completely understand if not. For all I know you may be able to do similar things without the aid of chemicals, just due to the sensory deprivation you experience as a normal reality for yourself, I haven't known many blind people to ask before. Thanks.

[@gerthjaanimae6222]

I haven't had any experiences with psychedelics, although I sometimes read the experiences of other people. Based on some stuff I have read and my intuition I would say that people who lose their sight later on in their life probably have some visuals while tripping, but the ones who are blind since birth won't, because there is nothing to generate the visuals from. It is the same with dreaming. Also, I have experienced sleep paralysis for about 10 times in total. I didn't experience any hallucinations, just quite an uncomfortable feeling. However, as I had read and heard about it before my first experience it wasn't scary at all, as some people have reported, just really uncomfortable.

[@johnba291972]

@@gerthjaanimae6222 That's really interesting, so do you not ever see any forms of patterns or colors in your mind at all then? If I close my eyes or go into complete darkness then I will still get a blur of different colors, like clouds of lights. I know light getting through my eyelids will affect that but I'm pretty sure its not all coming from my eyes, it feels like its at least partly in my mind. If I'm in complete darkness it usually makes the patterns and colors increase and that can't be from light getting through my eyelids because there isn't any light. I always imagined blind people would get something similar, even if born blind. As for sleep paralysis I used to get that sometimes but haven't experienced it in at least 15 years now. I did actually enjoy the experience as it was kind of similar to a strange sort of trip. That sensation of not being able to move at all, and it happening when you just started to wake and are still in that half asleep mode, its like wondering if your in a dream at first. Some say they detect shadow people but for me it was a sort of large lizard/insect type thing that could climb across the walls and ceiling, but was always just outside the bedroom door where I couldn't quite see it. It was almost like it would flash across the very corner of my vision quickly, but gone again before you could spot it. I don't even know how I know it was lizard/insect like. But for some reason I always was sure it was coming for me, like I could sense it was coming. Such a strange sensation but a really good trip at the same time. I do miss sleep paralysis.

[@studlord9970]

Hello. I am just curious as to what type of mechanism you have which allows you to type and post comments. I hope I am not sounding too ignorant. I am aware that there is this technology, but I am not sure what it looks like. Are you using a Braille keyboard? Voice to screen program?

[@thatgirlwhousedtohavereall5549]

Stud Lord There are apps to assist blind people. They’re quite interesting, look them up sometime.

[@mgthestrange9098]

As someone who went blind 6 years ago, I was interested in this video as ,this sounds odd, I wasn’t sure. And yes, it is just that I notice sounds more than I used to and I have subconsciously learned how to relate sounds related to how far away they are and you do just have to pay more attention to your surroundings.. At first, I used to be exhausted after even short walks due to the amount of concentration needed but it just comes a bit more naturally.

[@CrazyMagyar]

I’m glad to see other blind people in the comment section. I went blind almost 6 years ago as well. I had a brain tumor pressing on my optic nerves causing me to go blind (optic nerve atrophy). I normally don’t like to go through the comments sections on blind related videos because the ignorant comments really piss me off, but most sighted people in this comment section seem to be respectful towards the blind and visually impaired.

[@putmedown625]

Hello, I'm curious. Can I respectfully ask the method of going through KZbin comments for a blind person?

[@WolfSpiritAD]

@@putmedown625 There are voice options on phones and certain computer setups I believe that they are able to use if I remember correctly. Also there is at least one if not more Blind KZbinrs that cover some of these questions if your curious. One I know of is Molly Burke kzbin.infovideos

[@walterscogginsakathesilver6246]

Thanks

[@mgthestrange9098]

I have an iPhone which has a feature called voiceover that reads out what’s on screen when you touch it. All iPhones have it and think other brands have it too. Likewise with typing, it tells you which key your finger is on and I found this not too bad as I knew the layout of the QWERTY keyboard as I knew touch typing before I went blind.

[@GrimKeeper9011]

Being born blind in one eye growing up I would always say yes my hearing was better but as I got older I realized it was exactly as Simon said. I paid more attention to things audibly. Is audily even a word? Never mind you get what I'm saying. Awesome work guys.👍

[@ravensinger5029]

"Audibly" is indeed a word.

[@zeabeth]

Aurally is the word your looking for. Audibly means the act of you paying attention was able to be heard. Aurally means you were paying attention to sounds

[@jenpinkerton773]

@@zeabeth it's not spelled orally ?

[@jimcappa6815]

@Jenna David aural- having to do with hearing; oral, having to do with the mouth. Sound the similar, different meanings. Hopefully that answers your question and doesn't come across as being a jerk.

[@BothHands1]

6:00 thank god you brought this up. i was screaming inside my head, that it depends if the blindness is caused by damage to the visual cortex, or if it's due to damage to the eyes. in the latter case, neuroplasticity will allow the auditory cortex to use those unused neurons, but this of course takes years and years, and happens very gradually.

[@worsel555]

As someone who is on the verge of losing my hearing I can tell you that my sense of smell has gone through the roof. I never thought I would live to have the ability to smell who was in a room like a dog.

[@Talik13]

3:24 I love how you can visually see Simon realize how weird "you turn down the radio so you can see better" as he says it

[@KaiTheKidd]

"Or more technically, it's just known as WITCHCRAFT!" I need a reaction gif of this and whenever someone asks something with an answer too complicated for them to understand or I'm too lazy to explain I just use the gif!

[@annapineda6826]

I have been a teacher of the Deaf for 20 years. I work with students who are Deafblind as well as students who come to California from other countries and are teenagers who often have had no formal language or education. (I love my job!) I started watching this video wondering what Simon and his team would say about Deafness. It was very well researched and pretty darned accurate! Nice job! Thank you ‘Today I Found Out’ for sharing this information with people who may not have thought about it before.

[@NoBudjetFilms]

You know how in fiction telepaths can "hear the words in your mind" I would be interested to see how thinking in sign language would work as a defense.

[@limalicious]

This is honestly one of those topics where this is exactly what I figured it would be.

[@Jester_The_Jynxster]

Yeah pretty much. But still interesting. But if deaf people think in sign language, do they ever sign physically when fhey do it? Like as a speaking person would talk to themselves sometimes? This requires more research...

[@bastionsea2829]

@@Jester_The_Jynxster yes, I've seen it

[@highmajorus2639]

When I was little I remember hearing a story about a guy how had been blinded in an accident damaging the part of his brain that processed visual data and not his optic nerves or eyes, eventually his brain rewired itself to processes the visual data in an entirely different area of the brain restoring his sight.

[@Mr-Damage]

My mother went blind from diabetes when she was about 25 yo due to the old school insulin and the fact that the blood vessels in the eyes are the thinnest of any in the body it's natural that they block up first and the eyes stop working ( in her case it went from healthy vision to complete dark in about 3 weeks. ) I noticed that her hearing was phenomenally good. Maybe not better but more attuned than a sighted person had, much more. She was unable to learn braille as having her fingers pricked to get a drop of blood 5- 6 times a day since the age of 6 to conduct a blood sugar levels test destroyed the nerve endings in her fingertips. Paper money was much easier than plastic notes because it could be folded whereas plastic notes cant fold ( you fold different denominations in different shapes ). Our family dog ( Labrador ) had never had guide dog training but instinctively knew he had a job to do and then started escorting mum where ever she went. Traveling overseas was always awesome as airlines would bump her/ us up to first class just to be nice and once as a 12 yo lad when me and her where on the way back from NZ to Oz after she was all comfy up in the 747 hump I was escorted to the 4th jumpseat opposite the flight engineer and behind the captain for the entire flight because back in the day any 12 yo escorting a blind woman overseas deserved a treat.

[@sukrpunch]

So you're actually saying that paying attention ISN'T a super power? Disagree (lol)

[@4g0tten4]

sukrpunch - LOL! It is becoming a lost art, isn’t it?

[@yokaibyte2133]

Yes, they do. I lived with one and he could hear things that a normal person couldn’t. I was a kid at the time and I would stick my finger slowly into the sugar bowl while making sure to make no noise. He called me out on it 😂

[@marcbeebee6969]

😂😂

[@EveryOhterLetter]

But that is what you don’t realize, you still making noise. A lot of sighted people try to creep around quietly to trick us and it never works. We can hear you moving and breathing e tc. And fun fact, we don’t like this.g

[@jessehudgins6066]

2:15 lol legend foretold your arrival.

[@jenniferschmitzer299]

Lea williams Hey Lea, just curious, how good is your hearing and how much eyeball action ( i mean the information your brain receives from them like vague shapes, light and dark or not much at all) do you have? I am not blind, I was incredibly myopic until i got my corneas lasered a decade back. Until I had that done, I relied on my hearing a lot and touch before I would put my glasses on. I have had hearing tests done (going for a job related thing) when I was wearing those glasses and my hearing ability was in the top 5 percent which I thought was amusing because I've always been able to hear noises other people cannot. But since I have much better sight I haven't had to rely on those senses as much. I have always wondered if my others senses compensated for my sight when I was younger.

[@angledgaze6203]

I'm sighted and I could probably hear that as well. Sometimes I am just walking and then I hear one of my family members breathing and it bothers me.

[@ElicBehexan]

I worked with a couple of deaf ladies back in my youth (I'm 66 now, I was in my 20s then.) One was about 20 years older than the other and she had been actively discouraged from signing at the School for the Deaf, but did know it, while the other wasn't. There wasn't anything wrong with either of their minds, but I have to say that deaf people that I've interacted with, then and later, did have deaf people 'thinking' differently than hearing folk. When they would write stuff down, a large number of words are left out because they just don't use them in sign. Few articles (a, an, the) are used, just aren't considered necessary. Sign language is to convey as much information as possible with the fewest number of signs. Facial expressions are used to convey some of that information, so the need for masks now are causing a bit of an issue for them for example. Now, blind people... my wife has limited vision, she went to the School for the Blind back in the 1970s. She was born with the vision issues she has. She will promise you that blind people don't have 'super powers' but would agree that most people with limited or no vision do tend to use their other senses because of having to pay attention to them. She can hear coins hit a table or the floor and tell you what they are, not if you drop a lot at the same time, but one coin or a few she can, and she does have some vision.

[@Elesario]

I find that when I concentrate on one sense, I tend to tune out the other senses to a high degree. If I listen hard, I sometimes go "blind" even though my eyes are open, I couldn't really tell you about what I was looking at. Of course, my mind is still controlling my eyes and when I focus again I often find my eyes looking where they probably shouldn't be :D. When I'm focused visually I stop listening; I don't have to turn down the radio, I just stop absorbing it; I lose track of so many conversations this way :/

[@stuffedsomething1699]

A pic of a blind person with the caption, "how do deaf people think?" We live in a world, huh

[@Boddah.]

Could you cover the old saying 'A cat has nine lives'. I'm surprised you haven't already.

[@AifDaimon]

this probably comes from how cats always land on their feet; I believe there's a video somewhere out there which explains why

[@stephjovi]

I would like that too. I have to talk to my old cat in English just to make sure. In German she only gets 7 lives. At age 17 she needs every life she can get 🤣

[@3Runner95]

Test it yourself.. For science

[@shaunw9270]

@@AifDaimon They don't always land on their feet so I found out. One of my daughter's cats when only a kitten, fell from a bedroom window to the patio and luckily did land on her feet but she did cause severe bruising to her feet. She soon recovered thankfully but the vet explained that they don't always get the opportunity to right themselves if they hit other objects while falling etc.

[@wwiiinplastic4712]

@@shaunw9270 I had a kitten tumble off some steps and she landed bad. She managed somehow to rupture her diaphragm and died soon after painfully and it was quite heart-wrenching. It's true; they need a clear path down because even the ability to land on your feet doesn't make you impervious to smacking a tree branch or bit of railing along the way.

[@Tharathgar]

Glad this wasn't about deaf people with the earbud sponsor.

[@sandrastreifel6452]

Tharathgar: Deaf people were included, at the end of the video.

[@PahzWatchesYouTube]

I was born deaf in my right ear (I have no cochlear nerve, so a cochlear implant would be useless). I'm hard of hearing in my left ear. I was "mainstreamed" while growing up. I went to schools on army bases till we were stationed in Alaska the second time and middle and high school was off base in the city (Anchorage). Aside from a few bad apple teachers, my hearing never caused much of a problem. I've had a few hearing aids over the years but each time, they weren't a great experience. Mostly, the hearing aid increased the sounds around me, but it also distorted things like voices (in person or on TV/radio/etc). So while I could hear all the ambient noise, whenever someone would speak, unless we were in a quiet area, their voice would be distorted. While growing up, we traveled a lot and my eyesight was so much better than my family's that it was my job to read the highway signs because I could see them from a greater distance. My parents used to joke that it was my superpower. In my early 40s, I still ended up needing reading glasses, yet my distance sight is still as good as ever. I'm 50 now and because my left ear is all I have, I can tell that my hearing is diminishing. The doctor said that it was just "normal age-related loss" but because it is my only ear, I notice it. I have yet to acquire any real superpowers with which to fight crime... unless you need me to read the highway signs for you while you drive to wherever your Bat-signal is coming from...

[@bearbarre6435]

When I was in second grade I lost my right eye when another student threw a pencil across the room. Having lost the right eye, my left eye compensated and I have had 20/10 vision in my left eye ever since. Also, my right ear is much more sensitive than my left ear. I believe that both organs were, like muscles, strengthened through a little heavier use with the loss of the right eye the same as the loss of an arm will cause the remaining one to become stronger due to extra use. However, I don't think they were "enhanced" as much as they were strengthened by, not only the extra use, but being blind on the right side, I became more sensitive to my right ear. The down side of that is that, with my right ear having ever so slightly better hearing than my left (as evidenced by doctors over the years when I've had my hearing checked), my balance was thrown off just a little. Not so much as to make me clumsy, but enough so that (on my feet, at least), I was not overly graceful for a time. All in all, I think the loss of the eye has actually been good for me. When I lost the eye it was my dominant one, so for a while my hand/eye coordination was off just a bit, but on a grander scale. I would occasionally knock things over if I reached out to pick them up too fast or I would misjudge a doorway and bump into it, and being reduced to monocular vision I suddenly had no depth perception. Consequently I had to be a little more careful in everything I did. And kids that age are cruel, so I took a lot of teasing, which made me just that much more careful and I learned faster. That carried over into all other aspects of my life, and I became more careful about everything I did and I got better at it, whatever it was. For instance my Dear Ol' Dad and I have always been avid hunters, and when learning to shoot my marksmanship improved noticeably faster than others my age, and my accuracy and consistency was by far much better than average. Learning to park a car or being able to get a vehicle into tight spaces was another thing I learned faster than my friends. Being more careful and paying better attention to things, I make fewer mistakes and learn faster in other areas, too, because I naturally pay closer attention. The only thing that frustrated me for a while was my balance, but that eventually got better, as well. While it hasn't made me a superhero (not by a long shot), I am known among my friends as someone who is just naturally (some say un-naturally) good at most of the things I do or attempt.

[@marianalopez3132]

omg threw a pencil across the room 😦😢

[@MandleRoss]

My teacher in second grade told us about you!!! Glad to finally meet you! (Just a joke, I actually did read your comment in full and it was very interesting. You could have an awesome superhero name: "Captain Careful"!)

[@thomaspc0]

Thanks, Simon. this was interesting. My grandfather was totally blind from the time my dad was a boy. It didn't really stop him any though. Of course you turn down the radio to better see something as you drive. It's all about your attention and focusing your attention on seeing rather than the radio taking your attention. We were taught that in driver's ed way back, well, many decades ago.

[@MarielaQue]

Hollywood has done a lot of harm showcasing so many myths

[@joehemmann1156]

This is true in so many areas. My wife gets so angry when a character with diabetes will be experiencing low blood sugar due to not eating and complain of needing their insulin. My dad rails against a whole lot of scenes involving planes (he had a private pilot's license). And certainly I've run into plenty of things that take me out of media when something mundane happens that's unrealistic. All that said, I think the other side of that coin is that people in general, myself included, need to realise that making movies where every aspect that wasn't fantastical on its face is realistic is not only impossible, but would massively increase budget and production time to even attempt. So we should as a society probably just stop integrating things we see on screen into how we understand the world. Bonus fact, Hollywood did not create this phenomenon, I can guarantee a majority of fiction books have that kind of casual inaccuracy in them as well.

[@paultoc2657]

Mariela Que As a blind person I have to agree with this video

[@Minecraftzocker135]

Thats like saying people have caused a lot of harm telling story's at fireplaces. Or Authors have caused a lot of harm by writing novels. It's not their responsibility to make anything realistic. If they want blind people to hear better, they write it in their story's.

[@joshua-lk1gf]

You would have to be a FOOL to actually believe anything you see in the movies. Everybody knows that whatever you see on TV you have to take it with a grain of salt, verify information from a reliable source, but apparently that's not the case anymore. You, and only YOU, are to blame for believing anything you see. I hope I'm wrong.

[@TammieBuckeye]

So true.

[@realshaho3180]

13:53 video posted 8 minutes ago. Already has 3 dislikes. Wow. Is there some sort of Dislike Task Force out there.

[@HaveRandomQuestions]

woops i disliked your comment before reading it. i changed it to thumbs up after reading it

[@slcRN1971]

I’ve wondered the same thing! It’s nice to see that another asks this question.

[@ABadassDragon]

Bots and haters, every channel and every video has them

[@_G50_]

It really depends on the person, I've worked hard to really listen to the smallest things especially as a person who doesn't drive. It helps me constantly be extra aware of my surroundings, especially at night.

[@endramay]

Sign language is an amazing lagnuage that leaves room for expressing emotion at a completaly different level than spoken ones. You should see them sing. Yes, you can sing with your hands. And even if you dont understand the words it's beautiful.

[@613aristocrat]

I want the next milestone reward for this channel or Business Blaze to be him presenting in one of those ye olde wigs that judges and politicians used to wear.

[@KitarraChaosWeaver]

So this is an interesting anecdotal case. It would have been fascinating to study this person, but alas. Mike was a star football player who in his senior year, got into a serious motorcycle crash. As he put it "he splatted his brains on the wall.". This left him with a lot of neurological damage. This included short term memory loss, blindness, and seizures. While he COULD form new memories, it took a long time and required a LOT of repetition. It took him 2 years of seeing me regularly to remember my name. Though, he would from time to time struggle to recall it if pressed. He wrote things down meticulously though so was fairly reliable. Interestingly enough, after a few years living as a blind person, he spontaneously regained his vision. Like, literally, he woke up one day and he could see. But....he could also hear. Really well. To that point that he had to wear foam ear inserts to protect his ears from normal day to day sounds. If his ear buds were not in he could near you talking quietly from 2 rooms away. My guess is that his brain was doing a LOT of rewiring and did something interesting. But there you have it. A fascinating exception to the rule. Though I suspect most of us would not ant to undergo brain damage to gain superhearing.

[@WarBeasty]

I remember I used to work with a guy that had a roommate who was blind from birth. One time his roommate tried LSD and said it was the first time he really understood what the word "color" was referring to. I thought that was pretty interesting.

[@celestialrogue6006]

The reason blind/vision impaired people struggle with sound location from above/below is because the sound is too central and both ears are receiving the sound equally versus the horizontal sound being heard stronger on one side or the other depending on the direction the object of sounds is coming from.

[@spcled1000]

There is a trick to get around that. Turning your head to the side so the ears are oriented more or less over each other, much like dogs do tilting their heads. Smarter every day taught me that 👍🏻

[@pencilfriendpaperscribbler6032]

@@spcled1000 I do not need this information. I am certain I need this information. Thirty years from now, someone who also does not need this information, will have to listen to me tell them this information, and I will be delighted that I saved it in my head for all that time. It's not possible to outgrow Aspergers. Not that you wanted to know. 😆

[@aubrey6538]

I absolutely love this channel I have not listen to the video yet but I can tell you it’s a huge myth. I have four children I am totally blind and I just have to rely on my hearing to know what’s going on around me to hear the difference in sound when my children are being quiet or they’re being too quiet and getting into the chocolate chips. I can’t hear any better than anyone else I just have to rely on my hearing more.

[@EveryOhterLetter]

Just wanted to say hello. I am visually impaired as well. I don’t have kids.

[@longforgotten4823]

Lea williams here here

[@fallingpetunias9046]

That's truly a parental skill. When to tell when quiet is "too quiet"

[@brieannahaney7759]

I have lights and shadows, and a mother of two so I definitely know where you’re coming from!

[@samuelmcdonough3605]

Kane: how can you hear a grasshopper? Poe: how can you not?

[@DavidRomigJr]

I noticed as a young child that if I went into our family’s orchard cold storage unit (guessing 100 x 100 x 50 feet?) with the lights turned out, I could hear where nearby walls were. The ambient “silence” sounded different near a wall or approaching a bend. It helped me anticipate walls while walking though I always kept my hands extended. I thought it fascinating. I could also climb straight up bin boxes using the half inch bands around the boxes. I’ve tried as an adult and cannot not stand on the bands nor pull myself up. I’m also horrified that I used to climb 50 feet straight up above concrete. I also miss it. Kids are crazy, including our past selves.

[@gillcaz]

How do blind folk experience hallucinations? Could there be any visual aspect? How about folk who've seen earlier in their life vs those blind from birth?

[@MrsShocoTaco]

When I was a kid (around 6 or so) I thought that, eventually , everyone lost their sight so I practiced finding my way around with my eyes closed. Never got good at it...just hit my head a lot.🥴

[@blackblurable]

I remember a friend who was deaf. He was a talented artist and loved music. I asked his mom how does he love music if he’s never heard it? She replies, “The vibrations of it. So he likes hip hop and electronic music due to the bass most times. Just like how to get his attention you’d stomp on the ground as he’d know you’re calling him.” He was a childhood friend and I was so curious about stuff like that. I was learning a few signs just to express how awesome of a person he was. His sister was just born like me. With our hearing, eyesight and speaking. What I wanted to learn is why is it called “dumb?” If someone’s mute, or the phrase blind, deaf and dumb. My original question was why does one affliction cause the other to fail? For example if one is deaf they might lose the ability to speak which I guess stems from not being able hear yourself

[@thejourney1369]

As someone who is visually impaired with blind friends, I can tell you the answer is no. We simply listen more closely and pay attention to the sounds in our environment.

[@spamletspamley672]

Very interesting thank you Simon. I have often thought that my inner voice having to convert everything to words (often poorly retrievable) must be slowing me down--especially as I can only think and read at the speed I talk, which is very slow compared with other people. It has been a great handicap, especially when, in an age of screens, few lines of text are on screen long enough for me to read them. :/ I had thought that, perhaps, if I could learn to stop 'inner voicing my thoughts', text might be absorbed faster, but, from what you say, it looks like nothing would go in at all if it wasn't converted into auditory memory. :/ That said, then I don't understand how my Chinese friend says that reading text is dreadfully slow, and that he has a great advantage when 'reading' Chinese characters, because the whole sense of a page goes in at a glance. This seems impossible to me, because I can barely even scan the differences between such finely drawn and complex characters at all (let alone produce the weird sound patterns that make up the 'language' that goes with them! :O ). It would be very useful if you could indicate which of your sources refers to which part of the script, as I cannot see the whole length of the links to their subject docs, and my phone is too slow to open them all one at a time to see what they are. Amazing how you manage to do so much! I wish you'd get rid of the dreadful earworm 'music' in the background all the time though. It is very difficult to get out of one's brain afterwards! :/ If you do this just to defeat the auto gain on your camera/mike 'ElectroBoom' has a video on how to get over the problem without using background music.

[@spurnd]

2:00 I thought that drawing was General Grievous for a second.

[@christocc]

"...better perceived perception..." Nice one!

[@jizzdup]

Simon I've never been this early in the comments. I initially had the urge to say something dumb af. Instead I want to say good work to you and your team man. Your work and transformation are respectable. I would love to know how you felt about your life before you blew up vs. now.

[@marcbeebee6969]

Now someone is a true gentleman. Mr W I will follow your lead nd try to be more positive today

[@lizzalkula376]

Question : why is it, then, that when you're listening to something in the background you (can sometimes) hear it better until you try to focus/pay attention to what is being said? ((As for the things like turning down music in your car while driving so you can concentrate - it's just that. It helps you focus better on the one thing you need to focus on better: driving. It has been scientifically proven that though humans can multitask they can't do so very well. If you are multitasking your full attention is not on both tasks so each looses at least some focus and you do not do whatever task(a) as well).

[@nielfindlay705]

I'm curious to know Simon, where do u record your shows? I follow most of your channels and in one of them u mention that u not in the UK as I would've assumed. Great show btw, and keep them coming. BioGraphics and GeoGraphics are my favourites... Thanks for keeping the boredom away over this lockdown period ..Cheers!!

[@eliahabib5111]

Czech republic

[@MarielaQue]

Video suggestion: How do deafblind people learn?

[@phantomdragon3893]

It's call braille it not that hard for them to learn

[@marcbeebee6969]

How do they date. Do they go on blind dates? And most importantly if they taste more Intense do they also cook better?

[@cronchcrunch]

@@phantomdragon3893 yeah but if the person is also deaf how would you teach them what the different braille characters mean?

[@brotherbear1162]

@@cronchcrunch Maybe a biographics on Alexander Graham Bell could help. Or more precisely Helen Keller. Jeez dude I learned this in 3rd grade.

[@tjanderson8800]

@Brother Bear watch the movie about Hellen Keller. It would explain it to you

[@knittinghistory5430]

Weird development when my great-grandmother went deaf: her sense of smell is what "sharpened" (though probably like blind people paying better attention to auditory cues, she just got better at linking the olfactory cues to what was happening) She could yell at someone to close the fridge from another room solely based on smell.

[@JmAnYoShI]

It's essentially the same type of talent enthusiasts develop for different niches. I know a guy who's super into cars that can correctly identify cars from s couple blocks away just by hearing them, and has this weird ability to identify some modifications made to an engine by listening to it. Another friend of mine works on an air force base, and can identify different planes by sound. I asked both of them how they're able to do it, and they both replied with some variation of "when you're around it enough, you get used to the subtle differences between them."

[@cliffsheets2384]

The points made starting at 10:50 are spot on. As a LDA HOH individual, I can definitely see the changes in my own thinking as a result of reduced interaction with the deaf community during the pandemic induced isolation.

[@ingridfong-daley5899]

I experienced a brain injury 3 years ago, and i've been writing about my experiences with what i've been calling 'the re-wire' because when i came to, my brain had changed remarkably. Certain sections of memory were wiped out, but other new abilities appeared (after having no interest in math or science my whole life, i suddenly was doing complex problems seemingly 'by instinct'). It also affected certain aspects of my vision and hearing--not that my hardware changed, more like signals were being pumped to places they previously hadn't because where they used to run had been damaged. It's like i got a superbrain in exchange for losing about 7-10 years of memories. I've been looking for other people with a similar experience to compile the data, and would love to know if anybody else has experienced what i have...

[@UniquelyPenny]

As someone with low vision and hard of hearing. The thought of losing one fully is scary. I can’t rely on the other or even learn to concentrate more because I’m lacking in both. Im just trying to learn ASL now to help when / if I do go deaf. In hopes that sense goes first.

[@EveryOhterLetter]

In 1996 at the age of 8 I lost my vision. I have been totally bline sense. I would have to say that this video is spot on. Some additional information. For whatever reason maybe because I used to have sight when I was little I have a hard time identifying where something is located if it’s behind me. LOL I completely believe it has something to do with my brain being wired as a sighted person earlier on in life. And yes, I have had a lot of people ask me if I had superpowers. No I don’t.

[@marccolten9801]

Okay. Way out of line but have to ask. How do you find and play videos and how do you type in your responses?

[@amb163]

Hard of hearing person here -- same is true the other way around. I have excellent eyesight in general, but my lip-reading ability has decreased significantly since I started wearing hearing aids at the age of 18. I just don't need to do it quite as much, so I'm out of practice.

[@pikeman80]

A Cochlear Implant will not help a Deaf person. They need to have some hearing for it to work. There are three in my family. The sad thing is the person that pushed on Oral communication instead of Sign was Alexander Graham Bell even though his wife was Deaf.

[@Reddotzebra]

I (being a sighted person) actually don't usually look to see how far away cars are when crossing the street, because hearing works just as well when there isn't a lot of distracting noise. This drives certain people crazy because I don't "look to see if it's safe", despite the fact that if I can't hear a car, I can't see it either.

[@AriadyPutra]

People always say they see nothing when they close their eyes, but I always see somekind of non-moving static pattern. It's like stars in the night sky, but not as bright. Not sure if everyone else just ignore the static or there's something in my eyes or brain. I've asked doctors when I was little but they said it's just floaters, but I think it's not. I see floaters occasionally, rarely, those are different. I don't know how to explain the static better, maybe it's normal, maybe everyone just automatically ignores the static, idk. EDIT: just found about Visual Snow

[@alpeshabhijitchowdhury6895]

>Video about blind People >Earbud ad Well done m8, well done

[@xxgreatnatexx]

Used to work at a major rentl yard here in the states. Odd fact when a deaf customer would come in I would break out the paper pad to communicate with em as I dont know sign, but a whole room all of a sudden would go quiet. I thought of it as funny.

[@atlfan6565]

If something us directly in front of or behind you, even a regular person has trouble placing the sound's location if blindfolded. Your brain can normally tell by the slight difference in time for a sound to hit each ear but when directly in front of or behind you, the sound hits both ears at the same time causing the problems in locating it. This is why dogs tilt their heads when listening. It changes the distance of each ear to the sound

[@delphinidin]

Even hearing people who don't learn language within the language acquisition phase of early childhood are never really able to learn it in later life.

[@nisvetaninalang]

I've been "only" half deaf since birth (most likely). And for me it was somehow important what I also see ... because of that, the reflexes are more pronounced than usual - that was even measured. Especially in faces of others, you notice more things... And one is more sensitive to the "read between lines" situations.

[@Heyitsaddie23]

I had a friend as a teenager who was blind and she was great at echo location. It was sort of her cool party trick. She also could tell who was around her from the sound of their cadence. There were plenty of times I'd be walking through our school after everyone had left (mom was a teacher), and I'd hear her say hey to me from a ways down the hall before I had noticed her.

[@elspeth6402]

Apparently memory is linked to speech/language for the s same reason as thought. Speech provides a code for the memory to be stored and retrieved. So those with very early childhood memories are likely to have been early talkers.

[@sherrylhenning5630]

My friend, Terry, got asked this aaaallllll the time. His answer? He can't actually hear better than anybody else, his hearing is just most focused to compensate for being blind.

[@1everydayperson]

I had a deaf uncle and his mom,my grandmother,refused to allow him to learn sign.He did everything hearing folks did including graduate from a hearing school.If someone tried to sign to him he'd get so pissed and tell them "I'm deaf but I can read your lips!" He went deaf at only a few months old due to some kind of infection like measles.

[@dhawthorne1634]

Even sighted people can learn echolocation. It's just harder because we have trouble trusting ourselves to move around without seeing what's around us. Edit: I posted this before he got to it. My job makes employees park in the lower lot during summer because of the volume of business we do. However, there are only 3 lights along the 200m (218yd) path. I've taken to just closing my eyes and clicking until I get to the parking lot. Now going from bright light to dead of night or navigating a house or hotel room without turning the lights on is no problem for me. That said, I do have to go much slower because it takes me a lot longer to figure out the shape soft furniture and locating small objects like doorknobs, light switches and faucets, but it is completely doable.

[@Naomi-pq6tv]

Canes aren't just used to feel things through the cane, it also helps them to detect a step off and how far down they need to step or even how far up they need to step.

[@IxyMorningstar]

I know someone who lost their hearing about a decade or so ago, after really bad ear infections when they didn't have any insurance. She's gotten implants in and is adapting well. It's likely due to the fact that she *was* able to hear but someone else in the clinic who only heard for a short time in their childhood has had trouble. So yeah, it's dicey.

[@Jeremy-rp3in]

Loved this topic! Very fascinating! Would love to know what individuals with no sense of smell and/or taste enjoy eating

[@sudoym3484]

What a lot of people don’t realize is there is a wide difference between people born blind and people who acquire blindness later in life. My great aunt is blind from birth, she can do some pretty incredible things with her hearing, such as recognize people based on their footstep sounds or breathing patterns. It’s all about adaptation, I thinks is just like how children are able to easily pick up languages when young while as adults it takes a lot more effort.

[@justineck5664]

I've always wondered if dead people could FEEL sounds through their bodies.

[@DrewishAF]

I'm no expert on the matter, but I'm skeptical about dead people doing anything other than remaining dead.

[@jasonburt7160]

More of a side note... There was an instance in a Central or South American country, I believe it may have been Nicaragua??? Where deaf children were sent to a care facility to live being that their parents were unable to properly provide for their needs. OK to the point... These children without any knowledge of a recognized and formal sign language out of necessity created one of their own. This new language not only created gestures for representing objects or actions, but also included syntax. It just shows how integral language is to the human species. Where language did not exist for these kids, a language naturally formed between them and was taught to new arrivals.

[@Willy_Tepes]

My hearing becomes much better when I am high, not because of anything physical, it is just that I notice more sound. For example a fan may sound like just a fan, but if you really listen you can hear the vibration of the motor, the cage, the air over the fan blades and the air through the cage.

[@eliscanfield3913]

My spouse has the usual ability to hear physically, but he's really good at parsing out the different sounds. Especially when he's seriously engaged like when in band or choir. On the other hand, he's a blond philosopher, so he's not always paying attention. Boy walked into a tree at our college's quad that he'd literally walked by a thousand times. I've _almost_ let him live that down.

[@iammyself7885]

I was born deaf in one ear, and after several tests as a child we found out that my hearing ear is able to hear well above average, which is pretty interesting. However, not being able to place sounds in the world from where I hear them is very stressful and draining to live with

[@lucybronkema6486]

So that's why my mom calls my outfits "loud"!

[@hardattackdj]

I wonder if the reason for blind people struggling with recognizing vertical differences has to do with the fluid in our ears. Since this fluid is essential (for the most part) for us maintaining our equilibrium, maybe blind peoples brains rely more on this fluid than sighted people, and makes the person perceive things on a level plane?

[@pencilfriendpaperscribbler6032]

That's a very interesting idea. If I were to stand with my eyes closed, it would definitely be more difficult to keep my balance if I tilted my head back. When you are orienting yourself in a space, how do you think of height? When you are outdoors, how do you imagine the space above you? I'm not asking for learned information about the atmosphere, for example, but rather how you perceive it functionally as a space you move around in.

[@Darmesis]

I would think sighted people have an advantage in certain, very limited instances of vertical sounds, high airplanes being an example, simply because visual experience teaches us where to expect a fast-moving object creating a sound to _actually_ be based on the delay of the speed of sound. I suppose a blind person who had interest in the movement of planes could train to overcome this, just like sighted that deal with locating flying objects do. I would also expect The Blind would perceive an airplane or such first, but I understand why vertical sounds is tricky for everybody because of its echoing nature.

[@robinstingley3953]

When you’re learning a new language, you can sometimes dream in that language. Years ago when I took a couple of sign language classes, I actually had one dream in sign language. I didn’t keep it up, so I don’t know if I would have dreamed that way often or not.

[@mindofthelion712]

My mother speaks Japanese, and we are both studying ASL. She says that the first sign of fluency is that your dreams are in the new language.

[@vanessathomas7437]

Utterly Fascinating, Simon!

[@uzaiyaro]

I’m slightly hard of hearing - I’m definitely not deaf - in fact I excel at beep tests - I just have tinnitus, and I have trouble blocking out certain sounds over others. Closing my eyes does nothing to help me hear better. Instead I turn my ear towards the person speaking. Some people might see the lack of eye contact as rude, but I see constantly having to ask someone to repeat themselves as annoying, so, c’est la vie.

[@ariste01]

What about fibromyalgia then? Most people think it's just pain but I've run into a lot of others like myself that all their senses seem to be affected. I'm extremely light sensitive, I can't handle spicy, sour, or bitter flavors. Sweet and salty I'm usually ok with. I've had my hearing checked and been told I hear both above and below the normal human range and I can hear very quiet sounds. I'm ok with loud noises, but layers of noise will get to me and i have trouble distinguishing sounds. I often used closed captioning or I'll miss important dialogue because I can't distinguish it from background music or noise I'm not so bad with scents, but I have a lot of sinus and confession issues, still when I'm in flare smells can definitely make me ill. Especially when I'm in flare I'm prone to what I call sensory overload. IDK if there's an official medical term for it. Just of the lights are too bright and there's too many noises and/or smells it will start out as like a really nasty panic attack and of i don't get somewhere quiet and dark quickly I'll stay throwing up. I wonder what causes that increased sensitivity. I guess if they knew that they'd know how to fix it.

[@MtlCstr]

It should be noted that Matt Murdock/Daredevil lost his sight due to a chemical spill and it was the chemicals that heightened his other senses. Incidentally, it was this same chemical spill that created the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The More You Know.

[@fallingpetunias9046]

I swear they ret-conned that so kids would stop blinding themselves to get superpowers. Like "No, no! It was a special mutagenic chemical. Not bleach."

[@tonyvolbeda952]

My understanding of a developing child's brain is said child has at least double the synaptic connections than an adult . Those connections that receive stimulus are reinforced those that receive no stimulus are reabsorbed. Though the brain is pretty well established by puberty it still remains remarkably malleable; documented cases in which a person, through trauma , was able to live a quality life with most of their brain gone or disabled. Universe doesn't like waste either.

[@amberfrazier575]

I learned recently that some people don’t have an internal monologue’s blew my mind I couldn’t imagine not having an internal monologue.

[@ScarlettKriss]

I found the inner voice section, quite fascinating. Imaging does speaking to one's self taking longer or does signing?

[@dennis7470]

Grew up in a small farm town with a blind man aprox 25, he knew almost everyone in town by their voice as kids we tried to fool him, didn't work most of the time. so what I'm saying is he knew by sound over 300 kids, he was always in the park.

[@jesipohl6717]

Lip-reading in conjunction with non-language signing, was always the real problem, it was forced on deaf communities who would have rather learned sign under the guise of "help" at no point in this history were actual deaf-advocacy groups that weren't government agents listened to. The effect was similar to teaching that slaves' slavery was good for them. So-called "signed english" and other related hand-signal "systems" are not real language, however the very different "English sign langauage" (ESL) or Australian/American sign languages (ASL/ASL) are real langauges (with all the features of true language) and are usually not taught to lip-readers classically. This is a purposeful politcal marginalisation that has been written about extensively.

[@MatthewHarrold]

I have my hearing and sight, but prefer to play piano with my eyes shut. I focus on the playing better when I'm not distracted by anything visual. I've noticed very many musicians absorbed in their playing with their eyes shut too.

[@_Abjuranax_]

I believe the term is Attenuated. Also; Talent is defined as a Trained and Developed Interest, so blind people become quite talented with their other senses.

[@coolnegative]

There's that guy who has trained himself to be a human bat. He can even ride a bike by listening to the return of a clicking noise he makes with his tongue.

[@HugoHugunin]

Do deaf people sign when they "talk in their sleep", or do they talk in their sleep at all?

[@cssruth]

So I'm not deaf but I took 3 years of asl and I noticed that as I practiced more I started dreaming in sign and because I do sometimes talk in my sleep, I once woke my self up by signing in sleep. When I became out of practice this became more rare. But I do still occasionally dream that I've made a new friend who signs and so that dream will be in asl. As far as when I'm awake,it's been 18 years since I was using it frequently so my vocabulary has dropped down and I probably have the sign capability/vocabulary of a 3yo who signs as their main language. I remember enough to be annoyed with my kids music teacher for putting bs movements in their concert and calling it asl

[@judithveley2790]

I used to take care of a lady who was deaf. Yes she did sign in her sleep. It was very interesting to see.

[@roonboo96]

Like cssruth I also learned ASL and was fluent. My first teaching job was at a mainstream school that had a D/HH program and I taught the kids in that program. Not only was I communicating all day in my second language, I was a first year teacher, and it was exhausting. I had very vivid dreams in ASL and would routinely wake myself up by being so tired I was not only sleeping with my eyes open, but signing. The movement of my hands would wake me up out of my deep sleep quite often. Very weird experience.

[@QuixoteX]

Daredevil didn't just go blind, he was splashed with "a radioactive substance". duh! :D

[@dallanledford6364]

And dropped his 4 pet turtles who were also splashed with radioactive goo.

[@comet1970]

In the original comic back in the 1960s, he was hit in the face by a radioactive canister that made him blind, but enhanced his hearing and touch. It also gave it a radar-sense which let him basically see what was going on around him, though not clearly. The radar-sense was the key to him being a superhero. I have no idea how the newer version explains things.

[@Hollylivengood]

I knew this couple who were both stone deff and they had kids who could hear. So the kids grew up speaking and unsung sign language from day one. The kids never had a problem with speaking, I don't know why, they did just fine. Maybe all the aunt's and uncles and whatever helped them out. But they started speaking at the same time as any other kid, and they used sign language too, like at age two, easily, they could converse either way. They learned reading early also, it was easy for them.

[@Kenniii3]

Wow. Very fascinating video. Good job guys

[@washkabe9179]

I grew up with a deaf cousin who was more like a brother and I've ALWAYS wondered about this. Also, I'm gonna bug you about the Australian Emu War, please do a video about it

[@marcbeebee6969]

But I think he did. Did you check the other channels? I think top tent or geographics. Did you see the yellow Fleet on business blaze. I love that video