第1自然段

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.

第一自然段：
根据最近的一些研究，可以明显看出盲人可以欣赏轮廓和透视来描述物体和其他表面在空间中的排列。但图片不仅仅是字面上的表达。当我在一项调查中发现一个盲人女性主动决定画旋转的车轮时，这个事实让我大吃一惊。为了展示运动，她在圆圈内部描绘了一个曲线（图1）。我感到震惊。如她所用的运动线条，这是插图史上非常新颖的发明。实际上，正如艺术学者David Kunzle所指出的，19世纪风行的漫画家Wilhelm Busch在1877年前几乎没有使用运动线。

第2自然段

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.

第二自然段：
当我要求其他盲人受试者画一个旋转的车轮时，有一个特别巧妙的呈现方式反复出现：几个受试者将车轮的辐条画成弯曲的线条。当问及这些曲线时，他们都将其描述为隐喻性的方式来暗示运动。从多数规则来看，这种方式似乎非常好地表达了运动。但是，与之相比，是否有更好的指示器，例如：断开或波浪线，或者任何其他类型的线条呢？答案并不明确。所以我决定测试各种运动线是否适合显示动作，或者它们只是个人独特的标记。此外，我还想了解盲人和视觉正常者对于运动线的解释是否存在差异。

第3自然段

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.

第三自然段：
为了寻找这些答案，我制作了五幅不同车轮的凸起线条图，用弯曲、弯曲、波浪、虚线和延伸到车轮边缘之外的线条来描绘辐条。然后，我要求18名盲人志愿者触摸这些车轮，并为每个车轮指定以下其中一种运动：摆动、快速旋转、稳定旋转、颤抖或刹车。我的对照组由多伦多大学的18名视觉正常的本科生组成。

第4自然段

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.

第四自然段：
除了一个盲人受试者外，其他所有盲人受试者都为每个车轮指定了独特的运动。大多数人猜测弯曲的辐条表示车轮正在稳定旋转；他们认为波浪形的辐条意味着车轮在摇晃；而弯曲的辐条被视为车轮在抖动。受试者认为超出车轮边缘的辐条意味着车轮已经刹车，而虚线辐条则表示车轮正在快速旋转。

第5自然段

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.

第五自然段：
此外，视觉正常者和盲人在每个情况下偏爱的描述是一致的。更重要的是，视觉正常者之间的共识几乎与盲人之间的共识相当。因为对于盲人来说，运动设备是不熟悉的，所以我给予他们的任务涉及一些问题解决。显然，盲人不仅找出了每种运动线的含义，而且作为一个群体，他们通常至少与视觉正常的受试者一样频繁地得出相同的含义。

第二部分

第1自然段

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.

第二部分

第一自然段：
我们发现盲人也能理解其他类型的视觉隐喻。一个盲人女性画了一个心形里面有一个孩子的画作，她选择这个符号，她说，是为了表达爱包围着孩子。我与来自中国的博士生刘昌红合作，开始探索盲人对于不直接代表其含义的形状（如心形）的象征意义的理解。

第2自然段

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?

第二自然段：
我们给视觉正常的受试者提供了一个由20对词组成的列表，并要求他们从每对词中选择与圆形和方形最相关的术语。例如，我们问：软与什么搭配？是圆形还是方形？哪种形状与硬搭配？

第3自然段

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.