An insight from DeafSpace | Robert Sirvage | TEDxGallaudet

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.

Robert T. Sirvage, a DeafSpace design researcher, ventured outside the pasture of Connaught, just north of the St. Lawrence Seaway to chase the butterfly of the immeasurable.

Sirvage travels across the country to promote DeafSpace as a design philosophy by giving presentations and participating in architectural projects, such as the Rocky Mountain Deaf School in Colorado and the Living and Learning Residence Hall 6, a new residential hall at the heart of Kendall Green at Gallaudet.

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Hello.

Welcome to all,
welcome here to Gallaudet.

I'm delighted to be here

and very excited
from the presentations this morning,

but I have to say they made me
more than a little nervous.

And you know, one of the things
that's very nerve wracking about this

is when the nerves hit you,
you feel it mostly in your back.

You sometimes have to shake it off.

That's perfect.

That tension that I'm holding in my back

is right in line with my topic.

I'm talking about DeafSpace
and insights gained

from an understanding
of DeafSpace and from dorsality.

From the time of Stokoe,

we started learning about
deaf experience and deaf language

and the visual nature of our language,

and many research findings
have come forth from that.

But what I propose is that we advance this
further, to the next level.

So we are examining not just
the sighted, visual experience we have

but also the dorsal experience.

The experience of the world behind us
where we cannot see.

If you see the image
on the screen before you,

you see birds all lined up on a wire,
all perfectly equidistant from each other?

This image, actually, has something to do
with how we innately measure ourselves,

so birds on this wire are all lined up
about three inches from each other.

But, in taking this objective measure
from our point of view, we're attributing

something to the birds
that isn't innate to them.

Inches are not a measure
that's innate to them.

They are measuring using
their given bodies and given experiences.

I want to share two stories
from my childhood

that come to bear on this.

The other picture that you see
is the farmhouse that I was raised on,

and the view from my dinner table.

Looking out my window, I could see
my father at work all around the farm.

And there was a laneway, a driveway,

just across the wooded area
behind the barn that I couldn't see.

There were trees blocking the way,

though there was a telephone line
that did peek just above the trees.

My mom who is hearing,
would, from time to time, tell me,

"Hey, we've got a visitor
coming down the road.

Go put on a clean shirt."

I would be surprised,
and not knowing the visitor was coming,

and see them sure enough
a few minutes later coming.

One day, I warned my mom.

Hey, we've got visitors coming.

She couldn't hear any visitors coming.

She walked to the window,
and sure enough here came the visitor.

I knew that, because I saw
the birds lined up on the wire.

And the visual cue I had was all the birds
taking flight at once from that wire.

I knew that was because someone
was coming down the road I couldn't see.

At 7-years-old, I knew
this simply from observation,

I knew innately how to infer
what was happening.

I had a number of cues,
but these cues weren't really visual.

They come from a dorsal experience
I have as a deaf person.

Dorsality.

Let's back up for a moment.

And look at the meaning
of the word "dorsal."

The dorsal fin of a shark.

The dorsal side
of anything is the rear of it.

In architecture, the facade
is ornate on a building,

but the dorsal side
is usually far less so.

Dorsal experiences are given less value

and often attributed
a negative value in our society.

But if you take
the imagined rock in our path,

we only see one side of it.

If we were to lift it
and see its dorsal side,

we might see a world teeming with life
underneath that rock.

The quote that you see here comes

from a famous architect, and says in sum,

that there is nothing about people,

nothing about humanity
that is innately measurable.

We, however, come up
with a means of measure.

A yard stick, a calendar,

a string of words set up consecutively.

These are all means
of expressing ourselves.

My job with working with
DeafSpace design research

is to look at the decisions
we make in architecture,

but back that up to see

how we quantify and examine
and inhabit space.

In one situation, for example,

painting of the background of a classroom
might be seen as important,

but the measure of width that we paint

the color for contrast with the presenter

will vary from a hearing
to a deaf community.

A hearing architect would think
about having a decent swath.

But the deaf eye is going
to look at the perspective

of the student and the teacher
in the classroom.

Is the teacher being observed
from 5 feet away or 20 feet?

We would need the contrast
to go much higher

because of the visual sight lines
we're attuned to.

A number of areas of research
have brought this to mind.

Another is the width of sidewalks.

The standard width of sidewalks

does not engage
the space of deaf people

engaging in a conversation.

Oftentimes, one has to walk off the curb.

So I began to collect data
to help me understand

how to create a formula
that we could apply

for a more appropriate width
to sidewalks and walking spaces.

The research found a wealth of data.

Much of that can be found

in the Deaf Studies digital journals.

But one that was striking to me,
and you'll see in this video,

people walking down a hallway

and avoiding something in their path.

I want you to see how they do so.

So you see this conversational dyad,

maneuvering around this obstacle
with no problem at all.

It's striking.

But it's a story we often see told
in the deaf world.

One conversational participant
is responsible

for observing obstacles for the other.

If you haven't warned me,

as a conversational participant
in the deaf world,

I would be upset that you haven't.

But they navigate this without cues.

What is happening?

We don't see them divert their eye gaze
and then reroute.

Let's take a deeper look at this.

After a great deal of study,

how humans view the world,
how we assess the world,

I would agree that we do use
peripheral vision.

We have a 180-degree field,

but we are very selective

in how we apply our attention
to our visual field.

Basically, it's widely agreed upon

that deaf people do not in fact see
with greater acuity

nor do we see a wider span
of peripheral vision,

however, we attend to that visual space
and peripheral field

more than do hearing people.

So we see differently, not better.

But one thing
that I had struggled with, though,

is looking at how we select
what we attend to

in a different way than others do.

So hearing conversational
participants, for example,

can hear from a 360-degree
field around them.

They're getting
information about the world

that is overlaid on
their 180-degree visual field

from this auditory channel.

So anything that is happening
in their dorsal experience

can be inferred
from the auditory cues that they get.

So in these research findings,

we then wanted to look at deaf people.

Yes, deaf people are visual people.

but that doesn't explain
what causes these adaptations visually.

So we generally accept
that they are deaf

and that is innately what's happening
and nothing else.

We give no attention
to the dorsal experience.

It's not counted, measured, or quantified.

So this really begs us
to explain in greater detail

how at 6 years old,
I inferred the meaning

given from the flight of the crows.

How did I do this
without explicit instruction?

And what about my dorsal experience
gives this notion to me?

So in DeafSpace, we're looking
at a number of different factors

to help us in design.

But I found a few that I can share
with you today in brief.

In DeafSpace, we look at
how deaf people occupy a space

such as a restaurant or a classroom.

In a restaurant,
if I'm the first to get there,

I'm most likely to sit
with my back to the wall

so I have control
of what enters my visual field.

I would not sit with my back
to the bulk of the restaurant.

I would reduce these stressors
by controlling my dorsal experience.

So if somebody else is there,

I would be willing to sit in
a different space.

The picture that you see on the screen,
depicts a forward-looking picture

that shows the shadow
of an object behind us.

So we are using cues
from our dorsal experience

to infer what's happening.

This picture clearly shows that there is
a street light just behind me.

The street light itself
is not in my visual field.

So when we encounter each other.

When two of us are in a dyad,

we have an effect
on our dorsal experience.

The conversational partner
is given a sense of trust by his partner

to notify each other of experiences
in their dorsal field.

In this film, you see
people walking backwards.

And the camera view is unusual
because in looking

at the deaf experience
and the deaf community,

if people want to experience
what it's like to be deaf

they very often will plug their ears.

Well the absence of sound doesn't give you
that experience of being deaf.

I say leave that behind.

This kind of video experience
that you saw walking backwards

and navigating in space is much better.

Because when you're walking forward,

your eyes can use the sensory reach
to see the columns or whatever

to see that you're walking straight.

That's also true
when you're walking backwards.

You use the surrounding environment
to infer your dorsal world.

This is an embedded experience
throughout deaf lives.

What I would propose to you is

that examining
your visual experience is great.

But it's also mapped onto
what gives us meaning

in terms of the space behind us.

And our dorsal experience.

We usually stop at looking
at that person being deaf

as though that explains everything.

But what role then does dorsality give us

in understanding the deaf
person's epistemological interpretation

of the world around them
and how is that embedded

in our research framework
with our experimental methodologies

with the ways
in which we are examining

deaf people and their dorsality?

I talked about how we manage
our dorsal experience when we're alone,

but if we look at
a dyad of deaf people...

when they look at each other,

the intersection of their eye gaze
extends this sensory reach.

We are then able to extend sensory reach

for the other conversational partner's
dorsal experience.

I am now responsible for
my partner's dorsal world

in informing them of any cues
and any significant changes in that.

And they in turn are doing the same for me
through that dyadic interchange.

In this next video, you see Dr. Ben Bahan

and his Deaf Studies Digital Journal

has looked at Italian experiences in Italy

and out in public and looking
at underlying similarities

in their use of conversational eye gaze.

And you would see
in this Italian pair of deaf people,

the same kinds of cues and warnings
for the dorsal experience

and something coming along in their field.

For example, a car
that they might run into briefly.

Without turning and explicitly
looking at the car,

very slight visual information was taken
and shared with the person

to extend their sensory reach
to their own dorsal field.

So this aspect of dorsality
asks us to look at further tools

we can use to understand
the visual experience.

We have eye tracking software
and GoPro cameras,

but how can we begin to measure
and quantify the dorsal experience?

I looked at
different conversational dyads,

some hearing, some deaf,
wear GoPro head-mounted cameras

and asked them to walk along H street,
crossing the medians and so forth

and converse while doing so.

So I looked at the hearing dyads
who engaged in spoken language

and then I analyzed the video tapes

for a moment when their visual field
extended both forward,

non-intersecting,
compared that with how often

the visual fields did intersect
with each other.

So you see the two dyads there
representing the data feed.

The green lines show
points of intersection

where their visual fields intersected
and degrees of intersection.

I'm not prepared to show you
all the data yet.

But the deaf dyads
had much greater intersection

and greater duration
of intersection of visual field

than anybody else.

A whole host of questions
is begged from this finding.

One of those is that of expression.

As we are navigating
a space and using expression,

I am in some ways
giving my new expressions

that you can interpret to get cues
about your dorsal experience.

And we do this for each other,
in turn, serially,

as we walk along
and engage in conversation.

Now the video that saw here,
the green there indicates

where eye gaze of both was consistent

in looking directly at each other.

And then you can also see
an indication in the data on your screen

showing when intersection

showing when intersection happened
consecutively but not simultaneously.

And then you can also see
some data in the hearing pair

where they intersected very little.

So if all of the conversation
were only consecutively intersecting,

then the data should show that.

But what we saw was for more
than half of the conversational space,

when two deaf people
were engaged in conversation,

the one who was actively signing
was not looking away

from their conversational pair
and still conversing,

they were in fact looking
at each other.

So I do in fact have to engage

in some kind of intersection
of eye gaze with my partner.

And some of that is

because of the dorsality
of our experience.

I am engaging in intersecting
eye gazing with them,

so they can warn me

of whatever is happening
in my dorsal experience.

And honestly, if they fail
to give me those warnings,

I would just tell them you
walk on ahead,

we'll have our conversation
when we get there.

It's a really hard and fast requirement
of a pair using sign language.

This experience of dorsality
begs for more research,

and there's a great
deal of potential with it.

For example, if you look at

how deaf children
are taught and educated,

we have looked at cognition,

we have looked at language
and many of these things.

But we have to perhaps look at
how we've interpreted that historically.

But the fact is there are
a great many more cues

that we have for human experience
and human being than have been told.

With that, I want to thank
all of you for watching me

and watching my back

throughout this whole presentation.

Thank you very much.