see me, feel me, touch me, heal me

[rosa]

I’m turning to you all for your thoughts/opinions. This is something that has haunted me for years.

How do people who are born deaf talk to themselves? When "regular" people process thoughts, we have little conversations in our heads. What happens in the heads of deaf people? Even those deaf who’ve learned how to read have not necessarily learned the pronunciation of the language; they’ve just learned (or so I’d imagine) what the words on the page represent.

Recently, someone on the Discovery Channel suggested that, when thinking about things, deaf people visualize a pair of hands signing. Somehow I don’t know if I buy that.

If anyone has any suggestions, or resources, or experiences, I would love to hear them. There are lots of bright people who post here, from all over the world; maybe someone can open my eyes a little more.

thanks so much,
Rosa

[buckingham rabbit]

hey rosa,

this is definitely a paradox. deaf people obviously have conscious thought since they are indeed humans, but unless they lost their hearing after a certain point of having it, i don’t see how they can even know what sound is to us. if its true that the other senses are heightened if one is inactive or disabled, i would assume deaf people think in an entirely visual manner. written words are just symbols for things. the word ‘computer’ is just a combination of letters that we use to represent the thing we call a computer. so basically, language is completely a social construction.

babies don’t know language until i dont know what point, but they still think. i guess its not complex thought, but there is something telling them that they are hungry, tired, happy, or sad. maybe once we have learned what language sounds like, it is too hard for us to comprehend any other form of thought as being that significant. babies scream and cry or laugh or whatever to convey what they want, but its not language obviously. if its instinctual for babies to make noises like that i dont see why it wouldnt be instinctual for deaf people to make noises either, even if they don’t know what they sound like.

since communication of this sort is a defining feature of human beings, deaf people have a language too–even a variation on english or whatever–but they construct it to meet their condition. so if they learn to read english words and connect our meanings to them, the only thing that is differnet is their pronunciation of them. they probably create their own sounds for different letters and words, and while it may be nothing like what we use, in effect it is the same thing. though this is assuming that it is a natural tendency for humans to try and communicate verbally, even if they don’t know what it sounds like. i saw on tv once a family of deaf people, and i think they were born deaf, and when they signed to each other, they made noises anyway. it could be that those noises are their pronunciations of the words they are trying to sign. surely deaf people understand the concept of sound, even if they can’t hear it. there was that scene in ‘mr hollands opus’ where the son, who is deaf, explains to his father that he can feel the vibrations of music on the speakers.

well, it beats the hell out of me.

[Javro]

Some interesting points, but allow me to simplify. Animals have a cognitive thought process without actually using language. Similar to deaf people I guess.

[AGAP]

Hey Rosa,

I agree with BR its a complex issue, kinda depends on any number of issues…born deaf, when hearing loss occured, language skills learned prior to hearing loss, system of communication (ASL or something else)…could be different internal system cross cultures. I gotta recommend this guys book Seeing Voices, scroll down the side window and you get a link to the book description.

I have read a couple of his books, man who mistook his wife and anthropologist on mars etc…very cool. Kinda likes himself a lot but overall very interesting presentations of cases he has worked on…neurologist Oliver Sacks

http://oliversacks.com/

Couple other cool articles

http://www.discovery.com/area/skinnyon/skinnyon971128/skinnyon.html

http://www.nature.com/nsu/011129/011129-10.html

Allison

ps good series on the brain on pbs…

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/brain/

[ 01-23-2002: Message edited by: Another Girl Another Planet ]

[K7 Rides Again]

why oh why did I check the boards b4 class <img> now I’m going to be late…

OK, I’m no expert but I am going to follow what BR was saying. In it’s essence, speech is only another form of symbolic expression. Different sounds strung together in certain order yields certain meanings. These sounds can be rearranged to change that message. But we don’t strictly learn and comprehend through sound only. We also learn to interpret our world through all of our other senses. I can’t really tell you what a rose SMELLS like-it just smells like a rose. If you’ve had that experience, then you too, know what a rose SMELLS like. So thought can be conjured through many forms.
As for the internal monologue…when I speak to myself, I’m not actually hearing myself. I am only using various symbols to pattern my thought. Let’s say I add 2+2 in my head and get 4. When I do this, I actually visualize a 2, a plus sign next to another 2, a line under both, and then the number 4. Or maybe I conjure an image of 2 apples sitting next to two apples, count the total apples I am visualizing, and there I have it…four apples. I have concluded a thought without ever using sound, and yet it was completely comprehensible. The idea or concept doesn’t change just because the vector for achieving it does.
As for deaf people who attempt to make sounds when they talk…they realize that there is this thing called sound and it can be used to express ideas. However, being deaf, they have never learned the proper way to form those sounds. However, they realize that their is a distinction for different words and letters, and therefore try to form sounds in the only way they know how, their individual way. Think of someone who can’t read and write. They can express ideas verbally, but not symbolically. Give them a pencil and ask them to write what they’re saying, and you’d get nothing but scribble. However, the scribble is their unique way of showing their ideas.
Does this all make sense? It’s still early and the old noodle hasn’t come up to fool power yet <img>

anyways…my thoughts

Here’s one for you. How come my roommate had to be told to go buy a new shower curtain 3 days after he ripped the old one? And why, has it been three days since he bought the new one, and it still isn’t up? I mean, total time of installation-1 minute. So what gives? Is it to complex to pull the little rings apart and insert them throught the shower curtain holes? He better get it done or I’m going to use the concept of my foot in his ass to get the message across (another nonverbal process that will still convey thought and ideas in his head when he’s thinking about how sore his rear is) <img>

[ 01-23-2002: Message edited by: kurticus7 ]

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