Social blindness : interpersonal communication with sighted vs. nonsighted persons : an honors thesis (HONRS 499)
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Abstract
The purpose of this experiment was to examine communication with blind versus sighted persons. To do this, 35 college students were asked to teach a second subject the respective meanings of a list of words. The second subject was actually an experimental confederate. Half of the the subjects believed that they were talking to a blind person, while the other half talked to a sighted person. The task was tape recorded, and then analyzed by coders for speech rate, volume, and linguistic simplicity. Results indicated that some differences did exist between the subjects' conversations. Those talking to the blind confederate took longer to teach the task, and talked faster and louder. Also, they felt their respective learner would not do as well on a quiz. However, no significant differences were found with the complexity of language used or amount of speech disturbances. Practical implications of the results are discussed.