For this assignment, listen to the Prologue and Act 1 of the This American Life episode #464 called Invisible Made Visible. If you have a smartphone or tablet, the easiest way to listen to this, and all the other radio shows for the class, is to download the This American Life app. Once you have the app you can quickly find shows (by title or episode number) and listen right then and there. You can also go to the websitewww.thisamericanlife.org and search on episode number. I've found it for you here: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/464/invisible-made-visible click on launch player and listen to the show.
Reflect on the experiences of the guy in the hotel room and with his daughter. What do these experiences make you think about? How do his descriptions of what it is like to be blind (for him) change your understanding of the sighted vs. unsighted world? Discuss your insight, perspective and thoughts you have from listening to this show.
Provide the psychology terms you used in your response at the bottom of your comment.
The Ryan Knighton’s experiences with blindness helped me to understand a little bit more what a person who has lost his or her sense of sight has to go through. His story about finding the phone in the hotel room was very interesting to me because the way he told it helped me to understand how confused he really felt. Missing the phone is one thing, but losing your bed would be a completely different feeling! This made me feel similar to trying to walk through a completely darkened room in a haunted house. I become very cautious because I don’t want to get hurt, scared of what I might find, and also very frustrated because I can’t figure out how to get out. I’m sure that Ryan was also very frustrated and confused after losing what he thought was the map of the layout of the room. I can definitely see how it would be easy to construct a picture in your mind and stick to it without considering the possibility of your perception being incomplete. I understand what Ryan said about assumptions and why it was is important for a blind person not to assume things. If a blind person assumes something about what is around them, they will be stuck in the mistake until something happens to help them change it.
In act one, Ryan’s story about carrying his daughter outside made me realize how much a blind person must rely on his or her other senses and contextual clues. When Ryan heard his daughter say bear, he had to rely on his previous knowledge about bears in the area, the smell of a bear, and hearing his daughter cry when he turned in a certain direction. Although some of these other senses and clues helped him to finally realize what the problem really was, they were not nearly as effective as using his sense of sight would be. This definitely illustrates how we use our senses together to get all of the information about a situation so that we can react in the best way. I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to live in a world where I were missing one of my senses, especially my sight.
One of the most interesting topics that Ryan discussed was trying to explain his blindness to his daughter. Clearly this is a much easier thing for someone my age to understand than his two year old daughter, but even I struggled to understand what Ryan experiences day to day. Although his explanation of “I see what you see when your eyes are closed but mine are open” even though it was rather confusing. If I close my eyes I can keep in my head the map of my dorm and even of my building and would probably be able to navigate it with my eyes closed if I had to. However, it is harder for me to understand how a blind person perceived new places where they have never been. I do not blame Ryan for getting lost in a hotel room; I know I would!
Vocabulary: blind, sense, perception
Listening to this episode of This American Life I found myself trying to put myself in Ryan Knighton’s shoes. When he shared the story of not being able to find the telephone in the hotel room I closed my eyes and tried to picture what happened. It was fascinating to me that a cubby hole could have that big of an effect on someone’s life. It is extraordinary to me that these people could live without one of the five senses. This example reminded me of learning about Helen Keller in elementary school. I cannot imagine being without one sense much less two. This story really put into perspective how our senses really do have a huge impact into our behavior and personality. It is amazing to me that people can live high quality lives and suffer from not having one or more of their senses. This article gave me a higher appreciation for people that go through these challenges and overcome them.
Ryan’s description of trying to find the telephone in the hotel room and the bear story with his daughter changed my thought process about the sighted and unsighted world by really cementing it into my head that being blind really is not temporary for most people. This gave me a new appreciation for people who live with this on a day to day basis and helped me gain thankfulness for the ability to have all five of my senses up and running. When Ryan was explaining the story about the teddy bear it really broadened my horizons to all of the different scenarios in which sighted people rely heavily on their sight and leads to different priorities and different perspective on the world in general.
One of the sayings that Ryan Knighton said that really stuck out to me was, “You don’t know where anything begins or ends so you really maul it.” This was towards the beginning of the episode but it traveled with me throughout the rest of the prologue and act one. For some reason this was a novel concept to me. I knew that people that are blind do not know where things are but when it was stated in this way it was like I really understood it for the first time.
Along with this, toward the end of the episode when Ryan talks about trying to explain to his daughter the reality of him not being able to see I found myself thinking about the different things I say on a regular basis to my roommate that she would only be able to act upon or understand if she was able to see. Some examples include; “can you grab my phone from my desk,” or even, “do you want to watch television?” Often I find that I take for granted the ability to see things such as my computer screen, iPad screen, or phone in order to communicate with people. Overall, I found this episode to be extremely informative and challenging.
Vocabulary: behavior, personality, senses, perspective
This episode of This American Life was really thought provoking, in that I never really think of what it’s like for people who are missing one of their senses, and usually when I do (and so does our society), I think we tend to pity these people, rather than admire them for what they’re able to accomplish despite their disability. Whenever I see a blind person I usually think more about what life would be like for me, specifically, rather than what triumphs and failures that person has experienced due to their lack of vision. And this is a natural tendency for humans, I believe. We are inherently selfish and care only for what affects us in the moment, and don’t think about others until after the moment has passed, or if we are feeling particularly compassionate or empathetic that day. I know this sounds cynical, but for me I realize upon reflection that it is likely true, despite how hard I try to think about other people. I did greatly appreciate in the story how humorous the storyteller was. It not only made the stories more interesting and easier to listen to, but it also proved to me that losing a sense isn’t a sentence to a life of woe and lamentation. The man’s experience in the hotel room was not only funny, but I feel like it’s something everyone can relate to. Everyone at some point in their life has fumbled through a dark room for something and been unable to find it. Or, less literally, everyone has had a moment in their lives wherein they discover some really basic fact that they thought they knew is actually completely wrong, and the misconception should have been obvious, but it wasn’t. Obviously it’s not an affliction comparable to being blind, but certainly everyone has felt like they know something for sure, only to be stunned when the rug is pulled out from beneath them when the truth is revealed. In addition to his hotel story, I thought the storyteller’s recollection of his home life was quite interesting. He never gives a physical, qualitative description of anything during the whole piece, and yet, when listening to it, you feel as if both you and he can see everything that is going on. He provides a vivid rendition of the without the use of color, or shape, or facial expression, and it’s still interesting and fun to listen to. I did like that he spent a lot of time teasing about the possible ramifications of his blindness, such as stepping on small children while rushing to his upset daughter (after hugging the wrong child). My personal favorite was his belief that there was an actual bear behind him after hearing his daughter say bear multiple times, only to realize it was her stuffed teddy bear. The misconceptions, while funny, also provide an insight into what his everyday life is like, and it is very telling of the struggles he may face each day.
senses
affliction
qualitative
In American Life, Ryan Knighton’s experience gives perspective to how a person who has lost their sight has to go through. His story about the hotel room was very interesting to me because of the way he talked about it helped to understand it. I can understand the missing phone because some hotels have their phones in weird places I have seen them on the desk, This reminds me of the time when I lost my sight for the first time because of a migraine. While it was only temporary, it was very frightening for me to understand what was going on and try and maneuver myself around my parents house and let my mother know what was going on. I remember being able to come downstairs just barely making it into the dining room when I then proceeded to walk into a wall thinking it was the kitchen doorway scaring the living daylights out of my mother who was in the kitchen, I just kept repeating, “I can’t see” again and again, and to this day I still have a scar on my nose from where I walked into that wall.
Later, in act one, Ryan acts like a comedian talking about how his daughter starts to understand his blindness. While sharing his stories about why he has to rely on his other senses to help his daughter in life. I liked that he did not seemed to mind teasing himself because of his blindness, such as ‘stepping on the babies.’ But what I really loved was the story of a the bear. Ryan thinking in the literal sense instead of like what his toddler was thinking thought she meant a real bear instead of her teddy bear which happened to be right behind him. Even though from what I have learned myself from toddlers is that they usually say words that are four letters or less and say as little as possible.
Just understanding his perspective is interesting to me. I can understand better from losing my sight the few times that I have that you have to rely on your other senses quite heavily to get around, but it was quite hard to do for me the first time when I was panicking because I did not know what was going on. The next time that it happened I understood it somewhat better and was able to put my senses to work, using my hands on the walls to see when the staircase would start, the warmth on my face to let me know I was near a window, just things like that. After it happened more than once I started to practice when I did have my sight that way I did not injure myself when I did not have it. Overall, I admire Ryan and other people who are blind because they do not get to see through their eyes everyday, but through their other senses and while I might lose my sight, every once in awhile those days are very few and far between. Though I have realized because of it not to take advantage of the fact that this is just one of the senses because just as soon it can be taken away.
Vocabulary:blind, sense
Listening to this episode of American Life, I was able to kind of take a short walk in the shows of a person who is blind. I would think that the hotel room experience that Ryan had would be a very surreal and unnerving experience. Ryan built this reality of the room around himself only to have it come crashing down on himself. It would be like if we saw with our own vision the way a room looked and then woke up to it being completely different from what we had seen the night before. Our whole reality would crash a little bit and I feel like he probably second guessed himself a lot during his transition to being blind. I feel like he describes it perfectly when he says that it’s not the blindness that’s the problem, it’s the embarrassment. It also seems like it would be heartbreaking to have a small child and not be able to explain to them that your blind which would be a huge part of his life, but she would not be able to understand that just yet, because children at that age haven’t developed a sense of empathy and seeing the world from other’s perspectives yet. I do however think that the best moment of the stories was at the end where the daughter finally realized that he was blind and he added humor onto it by talking about how she made him touch a tv screen to feel what was showing on the screen for her.
These descriptions make me feel more empathetic to the struggles that blind people face every day. They make me think about what it is like to live everyday without a sense that I use all the time. It also makes me thankful that I have sight and it makes me realize that it’s a sense we regularly take for granted. These testimonies made me think about how blind people see the world and how children might not always understand that. I guess I have never thought before about how blind people see the world except for elaborate Hollywood depictions such as Daredevil. It made me realize that there is an unsighted world that is truly real for those who are blind. I thought his description of how he was able to perceive and map out a room with his mind was very interesting. I have heard of many cases where people use forms of echolocation to be able to find their way around a room, but I’ve never heard of feeling around the room and creating a map in your mind before. I thought it was interesting how he described it saying that it was like everything he touch all of a sudden became reality as if it weren’t already part of reality before. I think this also shows just how important of a sense sight is in our lives because we wouldn’t know our surroundings anywhere near as well if we didn’t have sight. Ryan had to adapt to his situation of not having sight and he had to rely on other senses, especially touch, to help him. I can understand the great deal of confusion and psychological pressure that being blind must create now that I have listened to this broadcast.
Vocabulary: adapt, senses, empathy, perceive, perspective, blind
I thought it was very interesting to hear from an actual blind person about their experiences trying to create a mental map of their surroundings. I remember when I was younger, I tried to understand what it would be like to be blind by just closing my eyes and trying to find my way around my house. Of course, I already had a map of my house in my head because I had seen it before and I thought I would make a great blind person. Looking back, I know that a blind person would have no previous knowledge of the layout of a new location and I was at a huge advantage.
When he talked about waking up to a phone call after he was completely sure that he checked every square inch of his hotel room I finally understood how terrifying that being blind can be. Then when he talked about reaching back to where the bed should have been and finding a wall – I know I would have lost my cool and freaked out.
Another thing that shocked me was how hard it was for him to be a father. I never realized that not being able to see would affect his daughter that much. I felt really bad for both of them when she kicked the ball and he didn’t notice and was trying to comfort her by telling her to play with her ball, and then trying to give her a hug when she was all the way across the room and then accidently hugging someone else. I wonder how he was finally able to console her and try to explain what happened, especially since at that age, his daughter would have been egocentric and unable to see things from a different perspective.
His descriptions of being blind and trying to figure out where things are where very interesting to me. I remember he said “groping” a few times when he talked about how he had to diligently search every square inch of tables and walls. It was also interesting to hear him talk about trying to “smell the bear” even though he didn’t know what that smell would be. It was interesting to hear how he used his other senses to find things and figure out what was going on around him
I was pretty astounded by Ryan's story. It’s incredibly difficult and perhaps even impossible to fully grasp the impact blindness can have on daily life without actually experiencing it firsthand. We all feel blind sometimes, for example, when you walk into your dorm room late at night and you don’t turn on the lights because your roommate is sleeping. However, that is nowhere near actual blindness because for one, we can still detect tiny amounts of light and make out vague shapes, perhaps with the dim light of a streetlamp somewhat near your window. Another reason this is nowhere near the experience of a blind person is because we have the advantage of already having seen the room. I know the layout of my dorm room like the back of my hand and I just have to remember if I left anything laying on the floor in the path I’m about to walk. If you’re blind, you don’t have the advantage of being able to mentally visualize an area, especially if it’s a new area or one you have not been in for a long time. I go on a lot of road trips around the Midwest with my best friend, and I can’t imagine how frustrating it would be to try to “see” the layout of a hotel room for someone who is blind. They’re all so similar and yet so different, with different amenities and layouts, that it would drive me insane to not be able to see it. Ryan commented about the embarrassment that he had to get used to as he went blind, but I think the worst part for me would be the time it takes to do stuff. It takes a seeing person about ten seconds to locate the phone and make a call, even in an unfamiliar hotel room. Ryan, on the other hand, crawled around and touched what seemed to be every inch of the room before eventually just giving up. I would end up being so incredibly frustrated if I had to deal with a similar situation.
I also never really considered having to try to explain blindness to a little kid. It sounded like Ryan was able to live a very normal life despite his inability to see, but it had to have been draining and frustrating to be unable to make his daughter understand that he was not purposely ignoring or neglecting her. This is a really good tie-in to the developmental chapter because when I was listening to the podcast, I drew connections to the other chapter in regards to how children of that age don’t realize that other people have separate minds and experiences, as demonstrated in the Sally-Anne test. It must have been such a relief for Ryan to finally have his daughter understand that he was different, so that she could begin to realize why her dad did the things he did. All in all, Ryan seems to have a great life and a sense of humor despite what many would call a disability.
While hearing this podcast, I couldn’t imagine how frightening it would be to be left in an unfamiliar place without being able to see. I have always wondered how different my life would be if I were to lose my vision and it just really scares me. I think about the skills I would have to learn such as learning to read brail or learning to navigate places. Also I can’t imagine not being able to see the beauty in nature. People who have lost their vision are quite incredible; they have managed to adapt using their remaining senses. The closest thing that I have come to not being able to see is walking through my room when it is pitch black. This also reminded me of how dogs are believed to not see color and how they see the world differently. It kind of reminds me of the moments when I wake up early in the morning and I see everything in a gray scale, it just freaks me out because I think to myself “is this how dogs see the world?”. Sure I still have my vision but I wonder how it would be view the world in black and white.
For me thinking about the unsighted world, involved me thinking about things that would change for me. For example, I can drive but obviously a blind person can’t, so I imagine how I would have to get from place to place without being a liability to others. I guess I never realized the daily problems that experience like getting lost in your hotel room or explaining the concept of blindness to children. Which made me think that there certainly has to be some advantages to being blind and there is. Some perks that I found through the internet is that blind people have lower electrical bills, they aren’t forced to watch something they don’t want to, and heightened hearing and touch senses.
I think I wonder too much about all the negatives that can come from vision impairment like blindness but it certainly isn’t impossible to live a normal life. There is one girl that I went to school that I think is quite remarkable. In middle school I remember that she was in band with me. I was really bad at playing but she was good; I honestly don’t know how she did it. She continued to play throughout high school while I was quitter. Not only did she play an instrument, she was involved with swimming! I only did it for two years but I am sure she started in middle school and swam throughout high school. I remember my first day at practice and how hard it was for me to learn. Then I look over and I see her swimming laps like it was no problem. She can without a doubt still beat me in race.
Vocabulary: senses, adapt
My entire life I have always had fairly impeccable vision. I’ve never had glasses and I’ve never been blind. Because I’ve never experienced not being able to see the world around me, I’ve made quite a few assumptions about what it’s like to be blind. First of all, I’ve always assumed that the blind tend not to go anywhere alone, seeing as this could be very difficult and pose serious problems. So when the story began that a blind man was traveling alone, in an unknown city, I was rather surprised and somewhat confused. How does he feel comfortable getting around safely all by himself, especially in a city as large as Chicago? But the more he talked, the more I realized, he’s adapted. Just because he can’t see anything doesn’t mean he can’t do anything. He has learned skills on how to get around on his own and how to navigate the world, even in brand new places. However, this doesn’t always work out completely successfully. Because I am able to see, when I enter a new place, I can fairly quickly become pretty well acquainted with the space, understand where various things are located, and how the space is arranged. But when you are blind, that doesn’t happened very quickly or very easy. They have to work to understand the layout of where they are and how to get around. And no matter how thorough they feel they’ve been, they could have easily missed something, as did the guy in the story. This seems very exhausting and stressful, something I don’t think I would be able to handle. And knowing that confusion and mistakes like this happen quite often, leads me to believe that the world would be a much smaller space if I was to become blind. Not in that suddenly the world shrunk down, but the things in my environment that I would able to sense and perceive would suddenly become intensely smaller, simply because I lost one sense. Being blind forces you to sense and perceive your world in a very different way than those with sight. Their process of sensory transduction happens differently because they are trying to understand their world and environment with one less sense, forcing the other senses to work harder to pick up the slack. And especially in this guy’s case, because at one point in his life he was able to see and then became blind, he had to basically learn everything over again, which seems like the most difficult part. Because he had experience with the world before he went blind however, this process of re-learning the world around him probably took a lot of top-down processing as he related what he was experiencing at the time to memories and previous experiences. The fact that I, as an 18 year old adult, still have problems grasping exactly what it is like to be blind, makes me believe that it would be that much harder for this guy’s 2 year old daughter to also understand what it means that her dad is blind. Because she is able to see, she assumes everyone else has the same ability. And at the age, being able to understand that her dad isn’t able to see, and knowing how that changes things for him, isn’t something that comes easily. This even goes back to the idea of egocentrism from human development in chapter 3. His daughter could not understand what it’s like to be blind simply because she is incapable of viewing things from another person’s perspective and her own flaws in logical reasoning. Overall this show was really eye-opening for me and gave me more insight on what it truly is like to be blind, often proving many of my assumptions wrong.
Terms: Sensation, perception, sensory transduction, top-down processing, egocentrism
I think that this episode of This American Life was very interesting. It must have been terrifying for Ryan to slowly lose his vision until it was completely gone except for some gray blurs here and there. As he began to get accustomed to his loss of visual stimuli, he noted that being blind wasn't the main problem he had. It was the embarrassment that came along with it. He also states that a blind person just can't assume anything because they don't have the sense of vision that most other individuals do.
Because Ryan was originally able to see his surroundings, he is at an advantage in comparison to others who have always been blind. I know it may sound strange to say that a man who can't see is at an advantage, but I think that he would agree. Ryan is able to adapt to his surroundings easier because he has seen some of them previously. While he has had those past experiences, he is clearly unable to have a full sense of awareness of his surroundings. In his hotel room he knows where the location of the phone should be because they are generally in the same place at most hotels. Because he can't see however, he had no way of knowing that there was a whole section of the room that he hadn't yet groped. He must have been shocked, then, to wake up to a phone ringing that he thought was nowhere to be found. He became totally disoriented because the mental map he had drawn in his mind had exploded. He described the experience as funny, yet also sort of terrifying. Ryan also says that this type of thing happens to him often which must be quite frustrating.
I find it hard to perceive what it might be like to be blind. While we can always close our eyes and pretend, it is simply not the same. We can again open our eyes with the knowledge that our rods and cones will still properly communicate neural impulses to our brain through the process of transduction. I found it disheartening to hear him talk about the struggles of being a parent who is unable to see. He felt like a failure as a father because he couldn't explain to his daughter why he hugged another child or didn't want to play ball. He knew the miscommunications could be dangerous because his daughter could not pretend to be another person or realize what blindness is. He found this to be quite troubling, especially in the case of the bear. He believed there to be a real bear directly behind them because he had no other way of knowing that to be untrue. His daughter had said bear, and from their location he had reason to believe that there truly could be one. Eventually though, he did realize that she was upset about her teddy bear that had dropped and not frightened by the sight of a bear coming up behind them. So, in the words of Ira Glass, "sometimes it is just easier to see things".
Vocabulary Terms: visual stimuli, sense, adapt, rods, cones, neural impulse, transduction, perceive
As someone with full use of his eyes, it’s hard to imagine trying to comprehend the world without them. I’ve never even had glasses so to think about losing what I consider my main connection to the outside world is unfathomable. Hearing him speak about how much work he has to do in every new room he enters just to understand the space sounds exhausting. He described the space of the hotel room and I had to mentally picture to try to better understand his story but midway through him talking I realized that mental pictures are the only way he can “see” the world around him. Every new space would be so uncomfortable. Every new object would be a complete mystery. I feel like there would be an incredible dependence on others to help you navigate your world. To be blind would be to have to learn new ways to understand the world. I know other senses are all important and play huge rolls in my perception but sight seems like my most important sense. It gives context to every other sense. “What’s that smell? Oh it’s cake.” “What just touched my arm? Oh it was my friend saying hi.” It seems like all senses are dependent on sight to give the extra necessary information. I can’t imagine what extra processes he must go through to understand his surroundings. Vision obviously in completely necessary for life but I think that it would be nearly impossible for me to adapt to life without sight at this point in my life.
Dependence, perception, sense,
I think that this radio broadcast was a really good way to hear about this guy’s experiences. When he was explaining how he “felt up” the hotel room and found things by bumping his knees and feeling the wall, I felt like I was actually blindly exploring the room with him, and the picture of the room began to form in my mind. I actually got a little bit of an experience of being blind, and I never realized how scary it could be. He was so calm about it, but the thought of not being able to see anything and the few minutes I spent experiencing it along with him terrified me.
One thing that I found the most interesting was how he compensated for his lack of sight with his other senses. He mainly used his tactile senses (touch, pressure, pain, vibration) to find things. I wonder if his thresholds for touch and pain are lower so he can feel things sooner than the average person.
He also utilized his auditory senses quite a bit. His brain has to be working overtime to decipher all the different sound waves, since he doesn’t have the sense of sight to help determine what each sound is. For example, when he heard his daughter say the word “bear,” and since he couldn’t see, he instantly thought it was an actual bear, and didn’t realize until later that she had just dropped her teddy bear.
I was surprised by how much he also utilized his olfactory sense to smell things that he couldn’t see. When he was looking for the supposed bear his daughter saw, he said he smelled for it, even though he had no idea what a bear smelled like. He probably uses his sense of smell to decipher objects much more often than the average person, especially objects with distinct odorants.
I also think he probably utilizes his top-down processing more than the average person. Sight is such a vital sense of perception, and the other senses don’t decipher things quite as explicitly as sight does. When he smells, hears, or touches something, his brain has to instantly recall what an object smells, sounds, or feels like. I know I wouldn’t be able to instantly tell what an object is by just using those senses. It would take a lot of practice.
Terms: tactile senses, thresholds, sound waves, olfactory sense, odorants, top-down processing