# How do the blind walk in a straight line? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 13, 2011, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-blind-walk-in-a-straight-line/599487 "2011-10-13T02:22:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-blind-walk-in-a-straight-line/599487/1 "2011-10-13T02:22:01Z")
_Mythbusters_ did a show tonight that demonstrates blindfolded people will walk, swim, and even drive in circles or a corkscrew pattern. In the ultimate act of stupidity the Mythbusters totally ignored the blind members of our world. Obviously they can walk in a straight line unassisted. I see them all the time walking to the stores and running errands. Is someone born blind better at walking in a straight line then someone that lost sight as an adult? How do the blind learn to walk in a straight line without sight? ---
**Author:** ![Beast\_Model](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3e96dc/32.png) [@Beast\_Model](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beast_Model)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-blind-walk-in-a-straight-line/599487/2 "2011-10-13T02:25:48Z")
At my college there was a blind girl who could easily swim straight laps… that was pretty amazing. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-blind-walk-in-a-straight-line/599487/3 "2011-10-13T02:34:43Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Obviously they can walk in a straight line unassisted. I see them all the time walking to the stores and running errands. Apparently they’re relying on external cues, though (or possibly by being legally but not totally blind), because they can’t manage it totally on internal signals. [The Naked Scientists](http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/latest-questions/question/2900/) fielded that question: > [@](#): > > _We put this to Jan Souman, formerly of the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tubingen, Germany_ […] > > So people have done two kinds of studies, one kind of study is just exactly that test - just to have people walk in a straight line while either blindfolded or being blind and see how well they do and it turns out that blind people do not do better than sighted people who are blindfolded. And the other test that has been done is have people walk in a curved path by holding on to something that guides them on this curved path and then have people judge whether they’re curving to the left or to the right. > > Again, it turns out that blind people are not better at that than sighted people who are blindfolded. The problem for blind people is so big that sometimes it happens that when blind people try to cross a wide street or multiple lane street, that they end up at the same side of the street where they started from. So they actually walk half a circle while trying to cross the street. > > […] the brain of people trying to walk in a straight path while blindfolded [or] blind only has internal information, only information that comes from the body itself, from the sense of balance, the vestibular organ, from the muscles and the tendons in the body and so on. And all those cues only gives information about the relative changes in walking directions. So with every step, it basically tells the brain whether it’s still going in the same direction or veering a little bit. […] > > the signals are noisy signals, they’re biological signals so there are some kind of noise in those signals. There will be small errors in those signals and those add up over time and therefore, you end up walking in circles because that’s just the accumulation of errors over time. That works the same way for blind people as for sighted people who are blindfolded. ---
**Author:** ![thelabdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@thelabdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelabdude)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-blind-walk-in-a-straight-line/599487/4 "2011-10-13T02:44:36Z")
Experience. The visually impaired may be taught techniques that help plus having done it for years. Some visually impaired reinvent the wheel, but others take advantage of what is called orientation and moility. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-blind-walk-in-a-straight-line/599487/5 "2011-10-13T03:01:50Z")
I thought they may adjust their stride to compensate. But wasn’t sure how they’d do it. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-blind-walk-in-a-straight-line/599487/6 "2011-10-13T03:56:45Z")
Partly the blind make it work by assuming that things are laid out in straight lines. If you go down a hallway or a sidewalk using a cane to avoid walls, curbs, etc. then you’re going straight because we build those things straight. In some circumstances, they might rely on auditory cues. I’ve heard from blind people who can tell hear when they pass doors or intersections in a hallway because those spaces echo differently. ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-blind-walk-in-a-straight-line/599487/7 "2011-10-13T03:57:34Z")
Natural selection. They’re the only ones that make it out of [drewtwo99](http://boardstest.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=626975)’s dome. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-blind-walk-in-a-straight-line/599487/8 "2011-10-13T13:04:14Z")
[Human echolocation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_echolocation). ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2011, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-blind-walk-in-a-straight-line/599487/9 "2011-10-14T23:12:59Z")
Have experiments been done to determine if blinded straight-line walking is possible in other animals?