Blind people and listening comprehension

[sfuqua]

Perhaps someone on the forum is blind and can correct me about this, but... I read some sources on the internet that suggested that blind people often use tts software at extremely high speed for "reading" and for using computers. I am completely ignorant about this.
Perhaps an L2 learner could continue to drive their acquisition to higher levels by training themselves to comprehend oral language at very high levels.

Has anybody done this? Do you know, or are you, a blind person who listens to audiobooks at 350 wpm?

[sfuqua]

Here's a link : http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... e-process/

[aokoye]

From the article:

Researchers from the Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research at the University of Tübingen in Germany have found scientific support for this belief. Blind people can easily comprehend speech that is sped up far beyond the maximum rate that sighted people can understand. When we speak rapidly we are verbalizing at about six syllables per second.

This doesn't surprise me as it is pretty well accepted that blind people by and large have better senses of hearing and touch than their sighted (and hearing) counterparts. I wish I had the book but there are a few chapters in Oliver Sacks' Musicophilia that talk about the fact that blind people (who don't speak tonal languages), both musicians and nonmusicians, are more likely to have perfect pitch than hearing people who don't speak tonal languages (I don't think he talked about blind people who speak tonal languages but I would assume nearly 100% of them have perfect pitch). He also mentioned a study that found that blind people (with and without perfect pitch) performed significantly better at tests that required differentiating which note was higher or lower when two notes were played in very fast succession.

[sfuqua]

The numbers are fantastic, however. What are the limits of a human brain?
I wonder how far one could get with a step by step attempt to increase one's level of listening comprehension.
I'm just surpised.
And humbled.

[aokoye]

I have no idea what the limits of the human brain are but I think what shouldn't be ignored is that we're talking about people whose brains have remodeled themselves because of a rather major deficit. Deficit isn't the right word because it sounds too much like it implies that blind people are somehow "less than" sighted people - that isn't what I'm trying to say. I mean, brains are pretty amazing, you can take out entire lobes of them (in the case of some people with intractable seizures) and have a person who is still able to function "normally" (although often after having had physical and/or occupational therapy). I don't think it's realistic to think that a sighted person can gain the aural acuity of a blind person, though I'd be interested in reading the contrary. Taking away the ability to see "frees up" a lot of energy (or perhaps neurons? synapses? I'm not a neurologist) for the brain to put into the enhancement of other senses and someone with all of their senses doesn't have that extra energy/space.

[Jar-Ptitsa]

I think that aokoye is correct. between the age of 14 and 20 I was in a special school, and one difference with the normal school was that we had the choice to listen or read the things, mostly, and for sure the people who have chosen the listening all the time were mcuh quicker with the listening. but nobody was blind or something like this. And, they were quicker but only about double I think, not 6 times!!!! or maybe we were doubly slow than the average. I've chosen it sometimes but seldom, and generally I prefer to read the things.

But the blind people read as well, with their fingers, thereofre a different sense than us with the eyes, but nevertheless another one than the hearing. Therefore, i mean, that we all use two senses for the language we receive. For sure the blind people must have more sensitive feeling in the finger tips.

I ahve a friend who is deaf, but I don't know a blind person.

[sfuqua]

I have no idea if the guy at this link is smoking the wrong medicine, but it sounds cool:
https://www.turnkeylinux.org/blog/pract ... lification

[astromule]

I know it's not the same, but when I'm doing a listening only course (Pimsleur/Michel Thomas), I use a sleep mask, to focus on the sound only.

[sfuqua]

Off topic myself, but, I have learned so much about how to study from the last three years of study of Spanish. How much better I shadow if I move, what a waste of time it is to study intensively if I'm exhausted, how soothing study can be when you're mourning...

[sfuqua]

Has anybody had any luck pushing their reading speed by increasing the speed of a tts of the reading?
Has anybody tried pushing their reading comprehension by increase the speed of the tts or audiobook they are reading?