第一部分

第1段

From a number of recent studies, it has become clear that blind people can appreciate the use of outlines and perspectives to describe the arrangement of objects and other surfaces in space. But pictures are more than literal representations. This fact was drawn to my attention dramatically when a blind woman in one of my investigations decided on her own initiative to draw a wheel as it was spinning. To show this motion, she traced a curve inside the circle (Fig. 1). l was taken aback. Lines of motion, such as the one she used, are a very recent invention in the history of illustration. Indeed, as art scholar David Kunzle notes, Wilhelm Busch, a trend-setting nineteenth-century cartoonist, used virtually no motion lines in his popular figures until about 1877.

第2段

When l asked several other blind study subjects to draw a spinning wheel, one particularly clever rendition appeared repeatedly: several subjects showed the wheel’s spokes as curved lines. When asked about these curves, they all described them as metaphorical ways of suggesting motion. Majority rule would argue that this device somehow indicated motion very well. But was it a better indicator than, say, broken or wavy lines – or any other kind of line, for that matter? The answer was not clear. So I decided to test whether various lines of motion were apt ways of showing movement or if they were merely idiosyncratic marks. Moreover, I wanted to discover whether there were differences in how the blind and the sighted interpreted lines of motion.

第3段

To search out these answers, I created raised-line drawings of five different wheels, depicting spokes with lines that curved, bent, waved, dashed and extended beyond the perimeter of the wheel. I then asked eighteen blind volunteers to feel the wheels and assign one of the following motions to each wheel: wobbling, spinning fast, spinning steadily, jerking or braking. My control group consisted of eighteen sighted undergraduates from the University of Toronto.

第4段

All but one of the blind subjects assigned distinctive motions to each wheel. Most guessed that the curved spokes indicated that the wheel was spinning steadily; the wavy spokes, they thought, suggested that the wheel was wobbling; and the bent spokes were taken as a sign that the wheel was jerking. Subjects assumed that spokes extending beyond the wheel’s perimeter signified that the wheel had its brakes on and that dashed spokes indicated the wheel was spinning quickly.

第5段

In addition, the favoured description for the sighted was the favoured description for the blind in every instance. What is more, the consensus among the sighted was barely higher than that among the blind. Because motion devices are unfamiliar to the blind, the task I gave them involved some problem solving. Evidently, however, the blind not only figured out meanings for each line of motion, but as a group they generally came up with the same meaning at least as frequently as did sighted subjects.

第二部分

第1段

We have found that the blind understand other kinds of visual metaphors as well. One blind woman drew a picture of a child inside a heart – choosing that symbol, she said, to show that love surrounded the child. With Chang Hong Liu, a doctoral student from China, I have begun exploring how well blind people understand the symbolism behind shapes such as hearts that do not directly represent their meaning.

第2段

We gave a list of twenty pairs of words to sighted subjects and asked them to pick from each pair the term that best related to a circle and the term that best related to a square. For example, we asked: What goes with soft? A circle or a square? Which shape goes with hard?

第3段

All our subjects deemed the circle soft and the square hard. A full 94% ascribed happy to the circle, instead of sad. But other pairs revealed less agreement: 79% matched fast to slow and weak to strong, respectively. And only 51%linked deep to circle and shallow to square. (See Fig. 2.) When we tested four totally blind volunteers using the same list, we found that their choices closely resembled those made by the sighted subjects. One man, who had been blind since birth, scored extremely well. He made only one match differing from the consensus, assigning ‘far’ to square and ‘near’ to circle. In fact, only a small majority of sighted subjects- 53% – had paired far and near to the opposite partners. Thus, we concluded that the blind interpret abstract shapes as sighted people do.

第一部分

第1段

从最近的许多项研究中可以明显看出，盲人能够理解用轮廓和透视图来描述物体的排列和空间中其他的表面。但是图片不仅仅是文字上的表述。当我的一项调查中的一位盲人女士主动决定画出一个正在旋转的车轮的时候，这一事实引起了我的极大注意。为了显示这一动作，她在圆内绘制了一条曲线。我吃了一惊。她所使用的运动的线条是图示发展史上最近才有的发明。确实，正如艺术学者David Kunzle 指出的那样，Wilhelm Busch，一位19世纪引领潮流的漫画家，直到1877年左右才开始在他广受欢迎的人物中使用动态线条。

第2段

当我让其他几个盲人研究对象绘制旋转的轮子的时候，一种特别聪明操作反复出现：一些研究对象用曲线来表示轮子中的辐条。当被问及这些曲线时，他们都将它们描述为暗示运动的比喻方式。多数规则认为这种方法很好的指出了运动。但这是否比断线或波浪线或其他任何类型的线更好呢？答案尚不清楚。因此，我决定测试各种运动线是否是显示运动的合适方式，或者它们仅仅是特质标记。此外，我想发现盲人和视力正常的人在解释运动线之间是否存在差异。

第3段

为了找到这些答案，我创建了五个不同车轮的凸线图，用弯曲，扭曲，波浪形，虚线和超出车轮周界的线来描绘辐条。然后，我让18位盲人志愿者感受轮子，并为每个轮子分配以下动作之一：摆动，快速旋转，平稳旋转，抽动或刹车。我的控制组由来自多伦多大学的18位视力正常的大学生组成。

第4段

除一个盲人外，所有盲人都为每个车轮分配了独特的动作。多数人猜测，弯曲的辐条表明车轮在稳定旋转。波浪状的辐条，他们认为，意味着车轮正在摆动; 扭曲的辐条被视为车轮在摇晃。研究对象认为超出车轮边界的辐条表示正在刹车，而虚线的辐条表示车轮正在快速旋转

第5段

除此之外，在每一案例中，视力正常的人跟盲人所偏爱的描述一模一样。而且，视力正常的人的共识程度只比盲人高一点。因为运动装置是盲人不熟悉的，所以我给他们的任务涉及到一些解决问题的方法。但是，显然，盲人不仅弄清楚了每种运动线条的含义，而且作为一个整体，他们至少会和视力正常的人一样频繁地得出相同的含义。

第二部分

第1段

我们发现盲人也可以理解其他种类的视觉比喻。一名盲人女性在心脏内画了一个孩子的照片，她说她选择那个符号来表明爱包围着孩子。我与来自中国的博士生刘昌宏一起，开始探索盲人如何理解诸如心脏之类的形状背后的象征，而这些象征并不直接代表其含义。

第2段

我们为视力正常的对象提供了二十对单词的列表，并要求他们从每对单词中选择与圆最相关的术语和与方形最相关的术语。例如，我们会问：哪个词与“软”搭配？一个圆形还是方形？“硬”和哪种图形搭配？

第3段

我们所有的对象都认为圆是软的，而正方形是硬的。整整94％的人将快乐与圆联系起来，而不是悲伤。但是其他的配对则显示出较少的一致性：79％的人将快与慢，弱与强相连。而且只有51％的人将“深”与圆形相连，将“浅”与方形相连。当我们使用相同的列表测试四个完全失明的志愿者时，我们发现他们的选择与视力正常的受试者的选择非常相似。自出生以来一直失明的一名男子得分极高。他只有一项匹配与他人不同，将“远” 分配给正方形，将“近” 分配给了圆形。实际上，只有一小部分视力正常的人（53%）将远与进跟相反的词汇匹配。因此，我们得出的结论是，盲人像视力正常的人一样解释抽象形状。