Jessie Glasser

Npsy 12a

November 20, 2000

As quoted in the "Perception" textbook, Helen Keller said, "The problems of deafness are deeper and more complex, if not more important, than those of blindness. Deafness is a much worse misfortune." Although during this experiment my hearing was only partially obstructed by the earplugs and I knew it wasn’t a permanent impairment so I was most likely more willing to readily accept problems with my hearing, the experience wasn’t as unpleasant as I had expected. In fact, aside from the physical discomfort of having the plugs in my ears, I believe I would prefer to be hearing impaired (to that extent that I was when wearing the earplugs), over being vision impaired. To the extent that audition and vision can be compared, uncorrected, my vision is much worse than my hearing was with the earplugs, and while fortunately, my vision is correctable, if I had to choose between uncorrected vision or hearing impairment, I believe I would choose hearing impairment.

There were, of course, several problems I faced when hearing impaired. The most obvious one was when, in two separate instances, someone was calling my name from behind me and I failed to hear them until they actually came up and tapped me on the shoulder. However, I had little problem hearing someone facing me or understanding professors lecturing in class (although I was happy when a professor joked "I’m going to mime the class today.") This may be due to the shape and location of the pinna in that sounds coming from behind are affected differently than sounds from in front. The earplugs must have completely blocked the ability of sounds from behind to enter my ear, while allowing some sounds from the front and side to enter. Similarly, although understanding direct conversations and lectures was not a problem I faced, being able to hear the questions and comments other students made in class, both people sitting in front of and behind me, was nearly impossible. This could have been partially a result of the fact that I could not see their faces and lips moving and consequently was lacking some of the visual cues that normally aid in understanding. The pinna and its subsequent localization of sound probably played a role as well.

Another interesting factor I dealt with was somewhat unexpected. Instead of me having to ask people to repeat themselves (which did occur several times), many people asked me to repeat myself. Apparently my voice changed when wearing the earplugs and I began to speak much more softly. "You’re talking really low," a friend said. "That’s because I’m trying not to shout," I responded. "I think you’re trying to overcompensate by almost whispering," she added. It’s true that I was actively attempting not to shout, because the stereotype of a senior citizen with presbycusis (loss of sensitivity to high frequencies, which is essentially what I was experiencing because the earplugs attenuated at higher frequencies more than at lower ones) is that they speak rather loudly. However, because I was unable to accurately gauge the intensity of my own voice, I ended up talking much more quietly than usual.

Wearing the earplugs, I noticed some other changes in my everyday routine. While buying a snack at the school convenience store, I suddenly realized that I couldn’t hear any of the conversations going on around me. This was a somewhat pleasant change from the normally noisy cafeteria at lunchtime, and occurred because the earplugs could have been reducing noise levels by up to thirty decibels, thus blocking out background noise. Interestingly, I had no problem with telephone conversations, neither with hearing the speaker, or with speaking back at an appropriate volume. I was surprised about that since the earplugs were supposed to attenuate sounds of certain frequencies more than others, however I had no problem discerning between certain vowels or certain consonants, although sounds of the highest frequencies were likely blocked out.

Even seemingly minor parts of my daily life were affected by the earplugs. For example, the sounds made by brushing my hair, showering, and yawning appeared different than normal. In fact, chewing gum during class made it nearly impossible to hear the professor because it blocked out the speech frequencies that would have otherwise been entering my ears. Perhaps I was actively experiencing hearing by bone conduction. While this is a normally occurrence, it only became noticeable when wearing the earplugs. Some of the frequencies of sound going through the normal pathway via the outer ear and ossicles, were blocked, thus resulting in a loss of conduction. Therefore, bone conduction, via vibrations transmitted through the bones of the skull, became much more apparent.

This self-induced hearing impairment certainly had some disadvantages and even some unexpected consequences. However, aside from the difficulty in modulating the level of my own voice, which could be remedied with practice, none of the problems I experienced while wearing these earplugs were extremely serious or unpleasant. Thus, while Helen Keller noted that she "found deafness to be a much greater handicap than blindness," I did not arrive at the same conclusion in this experiment. Perhaps, being that Keller was both completely blind and deaf, she had a different perspective on the impairments, but based on my experience wearing the earplugs, as well as having very poor uncorrected vision, I believe I would prefer hearing impairment to blindness.