Category: Colour

Reading braille in colour

tgraven/ / Colour, Crossmodal brain plasticity, Crossmodal correspondences, Haptic touch, Multisensory, Vision

Previous research has found that people who have just started reading braille by haptic touch try to imagine the characters visually. For example, seeing black spots on a white background and associating the formation of these with regular print characters, objects they have seen, or both. When they become tactually more experienced, this stops. In contrast, people who are born blind recognise the braille characters through either their quantity and location of dots or their tactile global shape1. (See our blog for the scientific approach, Vision, haptic touch, and hearing, and Decay and maintenance of sensory memories.)

This time, I wanted to explore what happens when people stop trying to imagine the braille characters visually. To shed some light on this, I have invited I.A. to share her experiences. Born partially sighted, with about 5% vision in one eye, I.A. started reading and writing regular print. I.A. learned braille on her own at around 13 years old: first memorising the braille alphabet, using a combination of vision and haptic touch. Then reading materials published in both regular print and braille. About three years later, I.A. was no longer able to read regular print. She now knew all the braille characters by haptic touch, but needed help to perfect her reading technique. Today, I.A. has been reading and writing braille by haptic touch alone for more than 25 years. She has been teaching braille to people who have become blind for more than 10 years. And she is an appointed Board Member of the braille authority in her country. I.A. approved this text before we posted it on our blog. The journey she is taking us on is rather unexpected.

For the first two or three years of reading braille by haptic touch alone, I.A. saw the dots in each character as mini light bulbs in her mind’s eye. She concentrated on how many they were and where they were located.

Gradually, I.A. started perceiving the tactile global shape of short two and three letter words. For example, of ⠉⠁⠞ (cat) and ⠙⠕⠛ (dog). She still reads longer words letter by letter, but she has stopped seeing their dots as mini light bulbs in her mind’s eye.

Reading by haptic touch alone, I.A. recognises the braille characters through their quantity and location of dots. She recognises short two and three letter words by their tactile global shape.

As I.A. became more experienced in reading braille by haptic touch alone, the letters started appearing in colour – just as they had done in regular print. For example, a in red; b in dark blue, c in light yellow, d in dark yellow, e in pale blue; f in blue-grey; g in green; h in beige; i in translucent white, j in white, and so on.

And the numbers too: 1 in white; 2 in yellow; 3 in blue, 4 in light yellow; 5 in green; 6 in blue, 7 in white, 8 in red, 9 in brown, and 0 in silver grey. Some punctuations and signs also have the same colour as in regular print; like “division” (÷) which is yellow, while others gained a colour in braille, like “equals” (=) which is now mossy green.

I.A. experiences synaesthesia. She associates certain letters, numbers, punctuations, and signs with certain colours (see our blog for the crossmodal correspondences between the senses and the intriguing association between sounds and colours).

I.A.’s synaesthesia appears only when reading. She does not associate letters, numbers, punctuations, and signs with colour when writing. But, as soon as she checks her spelling, they appear in colour again.

When reading shorter words, like “cat” and “dog”, I.A. first detects the tactile global shape of the word and then associates it with colour. That is, the colour when combining all the letters. The word “dog” for example is a combination of (d) dark yellow, (o) silver grey, and (g) green. I.A. sees “dog” as a mossy green word.

According to I.A. the colour helps her distinguish between words with a similar tactile global shape. For example, ⠙⠕⠛ (dog) and ⠋⠕⠛ (fog). While “dog” has a mossy green colour, “fog” is light green; that is, a combination of (f) blue-grey, (o) silver grey, and (g) green.

Longer words, that I.A. reads letter by letter, are coloured by their first letter. For example, the word “braille” is dark blue and “crossmodal” is light yellow.

It seems I.A.’s subjective crossmodal correspondences are not sensory specific: they exist regardless of whether she is reading regular print or braille. Could they be linked to information that transfers between vision and touch? For example, shape. Or, are they rather linked to the sound of the letters, numbers, punctuations, and signs (see our blog for the scientific approach, the crossmodal correspondences between the senses and the intriguing association between sounds and colours)?

See our blog for Activities; especially 58-61.

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1Graven, T. (2015). How blind individuals discriminate braille characters: An identification and comparison of three discrimination strategies. British Journal of Visual Impairment, 33(2), 80-95.

Colours without vision

tgraven/ / Colour, Crossmodal correspondences, Posts, Vision

Colours are perceived solely through vision. Indeed, when S.B. gained sight after more than 50 years of blindness, he saw the world for the first time in colours. (See our blog for the scientific approach and Vision, haptic touch, and hearing.)

So, what is colour to people who are blind? This post presents some lived experiences.

The eye perceives colours when light reflects off an object. It detects their hue (e.g., red or orange), lightness or darkness (e.g., pink or red), and intensity (e.g., bright or dull yellow). Various devices, smartphone apps, and a braille-like alphabet have been developed to convey this information to people who are blind. While sighted adults and children rather describe:

– the colours through their other senses. For example, that “pink is fangirls screaming”

– what colours do. For example, that red attracts their attention

– how colours make them feel. For example, that blue relaxes them

 

“So, being blind since birth, I’ve never seen color. I don’t have any concept of what it is (…) there’s this whole part of vocabulary of language that doesn’t mean anything to me. Over the years people have tried and tried to explain color to me, and I just don’t understand it.”

“Because I have never seen colors, I don’t think I really understand what they are. However, I do know the color of many things: crows are black, leaves are green, and hair may be blonde, brown, red, black, gray, white — or dyed any color a person desires. I also know colors are highly symbolic in our culture: “I was so angry, I saw red.” Or, ‘I was tickled pink.’”

In fact, the concept of colour is just as abstract for people who are born blind as the concept of justice. Both are learnt through language, by reading and hearing about them.

 

“Ocean green smells so nice, it’s my favourite colour.” (M.O.)

“(…) right now my favorite color is purple, and that is because of my musical hero Prince. Everything he had and did, purple was his thing so I just figured why not. I like Prince, therefore I like purple. I’m not quite sure what I understand about the color purple. I mean it’s not as popular as red, green, orange, or blue or any of those, right? I hear about those things all the time, but I don’t hear about purple that much. As far as purple stuff? I’m not quite sure. Grapes are purple. I know that. I’m not quite sure what else in nature is purple, though? I don’t know. It feels like it’s sort of a strange color. It’s not in the rainbow. What else is purple?”

For sighted people, the concept of colour has sensory qualities and is, therefore, represented in a different part of the brain than the concept of justice.

But what if vision is lost later in life?

 

“So, to me, blue is swimming in a pool, or running my hands under water. Yellow is the heat from the sun (…). When I think of purple, I think of feeling peaceful and calm, or the texture of velvet. When I think of black, I think of a fluffy cat. When I think of white I think of cotton balls, overly soft blankets. And green is the smell of fresh cut grass or walking barefoot in the summer.”

“I group colours into large temperature groups, and narrow it down from there using my other senses. Is it warm like pink, red, orange or yellow? (…) Is it a combination colour like peach which I conceptualize as pink/orange? (…) I keep the relationships memorized. If it’s two-colour combination of warm, a cool or a neutral, I’m usually OK. Then I group colours into three main shade categories. (…) Light/pastel, medium, and dark. I also love when colours are compared to my other senses that don’t involve vision. Like saying something is green like lush summer grass or saying something is brown like a piece of rich dark chocolate.”

B.T., who lost his vision more than 20 years ago, explained that his memory of colours is decaying. Although he remembers them, their hue, their lightness or darkness, and their intensity are no longer as clear as they once were. But not in his dreams. When B.T. is fast asleep and dreaming, the colours are still both nuanced and vivid. (See our blog for the Decay and maintenance of sensory memories and the Visual memories and sensory experiences.)

When vision is absent from birth, colour is just a sum of learnt information. Even black – people who are blind do also not see the colour black. To them, colour is an abstract concept. And, for those who lose vision later in life, there are no crossmodal correspondences that transfers information from the sense of hearing, smell, taste, or touch to vision: colour is solely visual. (See our blog for the crossmodal correspondences between the senses.) It seems they have to actively create and learn associations between their memory of each colour and their other senses, as well as systems for memorising them. Or else their memories will decay.

See our blog for Activities; especially 52-54.