the other day I was thinking that anyone can learn memory techniques but then I realized that blind people can’t use memory techniques because I think they can’t see pictures. I am right in assuming this? Don’t you need to see a dog first before you can imagine a dog in your head? What are your thoughts about this?
I have been thinking about this and I actually started to put together a PAO system without images but containing out of sounds, touch (different structures) and smell/taste.
You can have objects (touch) that make sounds or smell. I haven’t figured it out completely but you could do it with something like that. You can smell a dog, you can hear him and you can feel what patting a dog must be like. So… that’s just my quick thoughts on it. I think it’d be a bit more difficult but it would be quite doable in the end.
i think that blind people in general should have far better foundation for understanding mnemnonics than seeing people…i say this with no base in facts(just a bunch of hunches)…
its just that they rely more upon remembering their environment than we do…they explore their suroundings more extensively… problaby their experiences with feeling curves/forms/textures should be an advantage, spatial understanding of sound should be like the wowth degree of what we are used to handle in everyday life.
so… i think a blind person could have less problems relying on mnemnonics than we seeing people might have…
just my guess…
as far as pao systems go i dont know how they would go about that… i think that would be a challenge…
but i do not think it impossible…
i think that such a system would be far more vivid compared with what i am used to play with in everyday life…
maybe someone could ask a blind person how they would aproach the problem of identifying people in a pao system…
i am curious as to how they would answer… maybe one person would be a limp person , then with a hammering sound for some other persons action? i dunno… i think actions should be more distinct for blind people as they identify alot through sound…
people information could be more intimate and personaly experienced…
a bit more like the methods they use in acting maybe?.. just brainstorming.
Congenitally blind have been shown to possess the same visualization skills that the sighted do. see
http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Learning-Memory-Larry-Squire/dp/0028974085
page 105
“Among the more puzzling imagery findings yet to be explained is why people who are totally, congenitally blind still show apparent imagery and concreteness effects (DeBeni and Cornoldi, 1988). These effects appear not to be attributable to tactile knowledge, because they are just as readily obtained when the to-be-remembered items are things for which tactile experience is unlikely (eg moon, tiger, and tower) …”
Interesting post. It takes me back around seven years when I was driving to work with a mate. We were going to work in Weston-Super-Mare. We both knew the way and had worked there before but, on this day we weren’t with it. Neither myself nor Richard could remember where the depot was. We had a good idea so, went to the general area and decided to ask for directions. This is the sort of thing we would do quite often.
We pull over and I ask an elderly woman for directions. She knows the place immediately but, says that her husband will be able to give much clearer directions.
The husband, also an elderly person is approaching the gate and, much to the surprise of both of us, he opens the gate to reveal a white stick. Richard and I look at each other. The man gives us directions.
Normally, when we get directions, if there is more than two or three turnings or roundabouts, the person giving directions hesitates, has difficulty visualizing and refers to their imagination. The blind man gave about six directions to us. There was no hesitation. Not only that, the instructions were clearer than those we were used to getting from a seeing person.
Normally, being used to this sort of thing, Richard and I would drive around a corner and ask a second person for directions. This is more the case if the person asked is not elderly though. Non-elderly people fancy themselves as comedians and like to take you in the wrong direction.
With no real concern for the time, and no clocking-in style activity needed for our jobs, we followed the instruction. We did ask the man to repeat them, thanked him and off we went.
Flawless. This was without doubt the best directions either of us had ever been given. I would love to talk to that man and tell him of my interest in memory. Already I was curious about blind people and their memories. Now, more-so.
The clarity of his descriptions suggested to us that the man had not always been blind but, I cannot be sure and this is only my opinion. However, with the benefit of hindsight, it is easy to understand that, if this man were to forget where the road is and perhaps doesn’t pay attention to his stick, he would walk into the road and it would cost him his life. He lives on a busy road. Given that the man appeared to be aged around eighty, this is obviously not the case.
It seems likely to me that blind people in general would have a better memory than seeing people. We automatically remember our surroundings by seeing them but, no actual thought is required. A blind person does have to think and I suspect they use the method-off-loci, even if they have never heard of the system. It seems like it would be a natural progression.
If the person were born blind, it seems to me that being born blind will not stop their imagination from re-creating their surroundings. Just as a deaf person may hear by bone conduction, as is the case with Napoleon Hill’s son in the bestselling book Think and Grow Rich, it seems equally reasonable to think that, just because the eyes have never worked, that the brain itself can account for this with ‘imagination’.
Maybe, as I would number a series of locations for the purpose of mental navigation during the process of memorization, a blind person may count footsteps and use environmental things such as sounds. The sound of the road will always come from the same place, so it will help orientation.
Incidentally, moles are blind. They have no junctions, seeing people from whom they can ask directions. Evolution may have taken their eyes or the mechanics of the eyes but, the programming language of mother nature remains. It must have done, otherwise moles would be extinct. Maybe the eyes are surplus to requirements.
Creatures in the deep ocean interest me in particular for this reason. They flash lights around their bodies like some neon Las Vegas sign. This is called bioluminescence. Total darkness exists where they live and it is these creatures that provide the only light as, daylight cannot penetrate such depths.
I equate this to human dreams. When we sleep, our eyes are closed yet, when we dream, it is in this total darkness that we have our clearest dreams. Far clearer than dreams ‘imagined’ during the light. Light has a significant effect on memory as ongoing studies are now showing.
By definition, if the light is not penetrating into the brain of a blind person then, surely it follows that a blind person has a much clearer picture in mind than the seeing person is able to create since the seeing person’s eyes are being penetrated by light frequencies. They will spend their waking life in total darkness, a thing the rest of us can only come close to in dreams.
Interesting story… it seems like a person who couldn’t see would have an especially well-developed sense of location, so it might even help with memory.
The human mind has a capacity to remember stories, so it might not be that different than memorizing by visual image: “I walked clockwise around the room and in the first corner there was a book; on the table was a tree; on the lightswitch there was an onion…”, etc.
Visual memory tends to be strong, but it isn’t the only way that people can remember things.
It’s quite funny that, a few days after I wrote this, the same thing came on British news. Not me though. Some study has apparently proven it. They didn’t really say much more than that or give out much information but, it makes sense. Visual memory is regarded as really good but, if you think about it, the majority of the brain is dedicated to vision. As we all know, if one sense isn’t there then, their other senses would likely take over those spare parts of the brain that aren’t needed for visual things. Hopefully, in the future, studies like the human connectome project will find ways to look into the brain and prove the things we all know and accept by actually being able to measure them on living people under normal circumstances. I think the personal headgear to measure these things is getting there too.
As has already been suggested, I think the spatial capacities of a blind person would be so tremendous that they would actually be better at using loci than a sighted person.
Not only that, but who knows what amazing powers of imagination they may have to create associations.
Moreover, I myself am not a particularly visual person, and often only “think” about the visual associations I create without necessarily “seeing” them. Concepts work just as well as images if you are a conceptual person.
That said, I did take up drawing and essentially forced myself to take an interest in art in order to jog my visual abilities, and this has been tremendously powerful. Even so, I often default on merely thinking about my associations rather than visualizing them. In order to test what I’ve remembered, I sometimes write them out, which again is a primarily conceptual act rather than a primarily visual act, such as drawing out the associations in order to test the vigor of the target material.
I work with deaf blind people (yes, people who are deaf AND blind) on a regular basis and they tell me some amazing things. They go walking around the town like its nothing because they memorized the locations. One deaf/blind friend of mine mows his grass with a lawnmower on a regular basis lol. I asked him how he does it and he said he MEMORIZED step by step his yard!
hmm… what if you asked him to teach you how to memorize his garden?
what experience would you gain from following his steps?, or from following a blind person around town(something which is problaby a more complex task than mere counting of steps(i guess that counting steps would not be the only thing involved)… it would be awesome, imagine to listen to the observations of the blind leading the blindfolded…
different people would maybe even use different techniques of solving their tasks…
i know of blind streetartists who draw cityscapes(even with colours)… ( unfortunately i do not have an reference to that documentary, it is a long time since i saw that program… 
)
I too would be interested in hearing about how they do this - whether it’s conscious, unconscious, semi-conscious, etc, and what specifically they do in order to memorise this
I am visually impaired and so have come to know a few blind people. First of all I can confirm that blind people do have both a sense of visualization and certainly a good sense for locations. Most people doesn’t realize how much more there is to finding your way through a town then seeing.
However, more to the point, I have actually thought about this myself and will see if I can ask some of my blind friends if they use mnemonics or perhaps try to teach them and see how it works out. My personal guess is that there will not be any difference at all, but it is an interesting question at least.
i agree… :)…
but what about them teaching you?
what about you blindfolded, being led by them…
why not try it both ways… (one thing is what you can teach them/expect from them, another thing is what they could teach you…)
lobra66:
I was talking about mnemonics strictly. Which I think I know quite a lot about compared to the average person, but who knows.
Other than that, I have already done what you suggested, but don’t really understand what that has to do with mnemonics? I surely hope that you don’t imply that a blind person teaching a seeing person something would be something spectacular. I know that some people might think that which actually makes me a bit sad since it promotes a very strange view on blind people.
i know i would be as sensitive as possible: when talking with a blind person of their lives, and the last thing i would want would be to show any disrespect()…
i never have wanted to promote a world view that is demeaning to anyone(and i feel sad this morning, that i might have caused such notions). i do not want to proclaim any excuse for being insensitive to anyone…
i would ask questions on being blind, i would try it and, to experience it from their view(to somewhat degree, listen to their narrative of the experience, what that might be like, experience the phenomenon). maybe this was a silly thought… or maybe it was a better rephrasing. again i would not want anybody to gain any momentum of illusions…
i do see your point on teaching mnemnonics to a blind person… that would be to meet halfway bearing gifts in a sense()…
sorry for not seeing that one(what was i thinking?), i blame it on being temporarily insensitive to the words written(too much coffe little sleep? to much impatience as i was to go to sleep, i know not)…
i would want to make people think in a different pattern about how we remember things, mnemnonics is a structured means of using ones memories of sensations and phenomenon, is it not?
you gaze upon a shovel, the shovel becomes a function of the which you know of the shovel…
the things formed around the object you percieve are all expectations of what that thing is…
what can be done, what you would rather not do…
my mind has been somewhat coloured of late by how people look for associations, systems and what not, with regards to mnemonics…
many interesting concepts… but now i need to run… lest work runs away from me…
Well well, no hard feelings! 
Here is a related thread: Training for the visually impaired.
This is interesting:
Compared to people with normal vision, those who were blind at birth tend to have excellent memories. Now, a new study shows that blind individuals are particular whizzes when it comes to remembering things in the right order.…“Our opinion is that the superior serial memory of the blind is most likely a result of practice,” Zohary said. “In the absence of vision, the world is experienced as a sequence of events. Since the blind constantly use serial-memory strategies in everyday circumstances, they tend to develop superior skills.”
Since eye contact is so important to social connection how is this bonding mechanism routed by blind people?
Everything I know about blind people comes from the movie daredevil which as far as I’m concerned is fiction.
Very interesting!
I can imagine that blind people create a strong spacial awareness of their (known) environment.
For example when they wake up in the morning – they’ll easily find their way to the bathroom.
Somehow relevant and mind-blowing concept from TED talk:
“David Eagleman: Can we create new senses for humans?”
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