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Blind and Visually Impaired Community

Full History - 2016 - 01 - 18 - ID#41kypu
4
Recognizing voices (self.Blind)
submitted by VainbIade
Hello r/blind,

Just a quick question. Does visual impairment tend to improve your ability to recognize people's voices? For instance, as someone who can sort people visually, I may not be able to recall someone's distinct voice, but if you sort aurally, does it mean that your ability to recognize a given person's voice is sharper?

Thank you very much.
Southpaw5000 1 points 7y ago
Meh I'm not so hot at this. Unless they have a distinct voice or I come in contact with them regularly chances are good I won't remember.
I usually resort to playing detective if someone comes up and just starts talking. Normally they will hint to a past conversation or family member or something that will clue me in to who they are.
I guess I could just ask but this way is more fun.
VainbIade [OP] 1 points 7y ago
ah gotcha, thanks for the input!
Unuhi 1 points 7y ago
Same problem.

I live in US, English is my third language.
I rarely recognize people by voice until i get to know their vocabulary and speech patterns etc.
Unless i make it clear thaf i dont recognize people i'm at my own. But when i get to chat with someone a few times in the same environment or they tell me where they know me from... Useless. Fortunatley patience with people helps a lot.
VainbIade [OP] 1 points 7y ago
I can imagine that that's quite challenging.
geoffisblind 1 points 7y ago
I'm going to go with yes, I had someone ask me this the other day because he said hi to me as I passed him and then later apologized for not identifying himself (something people rarely do for me anyways) and asked if I still knew it was him. I did, it's not like I have better hearing, but I think I pay more attention to it than my sighted peers. It doesn't work every time though, so while I can make pretty good guesses that are often times accurate when I can't ID people with the vision I do have I mostly opt to just say hey back if I'm just passing them to save embarrassment of calling them the wrong name on accident.
VainbIade [OP] 1 points 7y ago
Cool, Cool. I'm actually no good at remembering people's voice or appearance at all. Basically any characteristic, aside from height and sex, leaves me quickly, so I often find myself in one of those "hey....you" sort of situations.
fastfinge 1 points 7y ago
I think so. But it isn't because we have any sharpened hearing or anything, it's just because recognizing voices is a skill we practice out of necessity. Also, I'm just answering on a hunch; I'm not aware of any studies or data to back me up, and I do know some sighted people who are better at recognizing voice actors and actresses (in cartoons and video games) than I am. But I still feel like I'm better at recognizing voices in real life.
VainbIade [OP] 1 points 7y ago
Interesting, thank you for the answer!

(edit for more details)

It's interesting that you mention voice actors, as the reason I'm asking is because I'm part of a team developing an audiogame, and I was curious about how players will recognize characters.
fastfinge 1 points 7y ago
Recognizing them by voice should be just fine, assuming you're using a talented VA, or multiple different ones. Heck, the BBC still produces audio dramas, and that depends on every listener, blind or sighted, being able to recognize voices.
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