[PBS Digital Studios opening bumper]
[Vanessa and Matthew Shifrin appear on screen sitting at a kitchen table]
Can blind people see?
If you have someone like me, who was born blind and who doesn’t remember seeing, a
lot of your perceptual info is tactile, auditory and smell based.
Would you say that you can see?
Then we go back to the issue of what is seeing.
But I can imagine, yes. I can perceive what I think might be there. I can estimate, that’s
the term.
[Text appears]
LEGO for the blind A short(ish) documentary by Vanessa Hill.
[cut to shot of Vanessa in hotel room speaking to camera]
So a couple of months ago I received an email from Matthew Shifrin, a recent high school
graduate from Boston who said he enjoyed watching BrainCraft and building complex LEGO sets.
The thing is, Matthew was born with congenital blindness. He hasn’t been able to see since
birth.
So I immediately had dozens of questions - how does Matthew experience YouTube and how can
he build a complex LEGO set without being able to read the instructions?
Sometimes it takes me weeks and I have excellent vision.
But most of all, how does Matthew’s brain function different from mine, or yours? How
does he experience LEGO?
And after months of wondering I thought, why don’t we just go to meet Matthew and find
out?
Also, they have delicious lobster rolls in Boston.
We’re going to Boston.
[Cut to shot of Vanessa walking through Penn Station in New York and getting on a train]
It’s so early. It’s 6:30am on a Sunday. We didn’t have time to get coffee.
[Travel sequence of Vanessa on the train to Boston]
I always travel with a LEGO set.
[Vanessa arrives in Boston and takes a taxi to Matthew’s house]
105. 105, this should be it.
Oh yeah that’s it right there.
Okay, yep cool.
[Cut to shot of Vanessa walking to the door]
I hope this is the right house.
[Door opens]
Matthew? Yes, it’s me.
Hi! It’s nice to meet you.
[Sequence of shots inside Matthew’s house - Vanessa having lunch with Matthew’s family
and LEGO sets]
[Cut to Vanessa and Matthew at the kitchen table with camera, light and audio equipment]
How would you describe LEGO?
That’s a very abstract question.
It’s a building system made for children that I’ve somewhat adapted. It’s a mobile,
portable and accessible way to see the world if you can’t see it. To see what is unseeable
[Sequence of shots showing Matthew starting to build a small LEGO dragon]
So Matthew and his family friend Lilya developed a system to enable blind or visually impaired
people to build commercially available LEGO sets.
[Cut to Matthew’s LEGO for the blind website]
Matthew calls it LEGO for the blind, and the system uses text-based instructions that take
you through the entire construction process: it really builds on the power of language.
[Matthew’s friend Lilya appears talking to Vanessa over lunch]
This is Lilya, who first adapted the build instructions into text, and gave Matthew an
821 piece set for his 13th birthday.
[Image of Helmut’s Castle LEGO set]
I always liked language and the ability of language. The power of language. So when I
finally thought, decided, that language is such a powerful tool that it can describe
anything I was really amazed to find out that it did work.
[Timelapse of Matthew showing Vanessa and cinematographer Ella his LEGO sets]
Okay, so if we take something like the Hogwarts Castle, the instructions for this step are:
[See Hogwarts LEGO set then a print out of Matthew and Lilya’s instructions.]
Put a flat 3x1 horizontally in the middle of the front side, on the 16x2 piece, on the
first row. Put a 1x1 with the clasp to the right of it,
clasp to the front and overhanging. Put one 3-button corner piece at the left
back corner, in the shape of the letter F, and the other one symmetrically at the right
one, in the shape of the letter D. Put one 1x1 piece on the back wall, skipping
one button to the left from the right corner piece, and the other symmetrically on the
right.
[Cut to mage of the original LEGO instructions]
And that describes this picture – where you have these 6 pieces and you put them here.
The thing is, these text-based instructions are so complicated that it can be difficult
for a sighted person to comprehend them. So naturally, I wanted to try.
[Cut to Matthew and Vanessa at a table in the living room with a set of LEGO between
them]
Okay so now it’s my turn.
[Vanessa closes her eyes and attempts to build parts of the dragon, with Matthew reading
his instructions to her]
You need to take a flat 1x1 with a clasp. You’re going to put that horizontally on
the table. You’ll need a smooth .. curve and put it
on this clasp. The dragons head is to your left, so if you
attach this in there. I can’t wait for me to break the entire
thing. No fronter. Lefter.
How do you know where it is? I remembered from the time I saw it a few
seconds ago. Touch everything, is my solution. My troubleshooting.
One second, give me your hand. Help me! Oh here they are.
Hey, that’s a pretty good application. Thank you very much.
[Voice over]
And building with Matthew helped me to understand how the brain of a blind person might function
differently to that of a sighted person
[Cut to stop motion animation of LEGO person crossing the road]
For sighted people, vision is a dominant sense. It’s easy to rely on because it’s the
most accurate way to quickly assess a situation – like crossing the road.
[Cut to animation of eye made from LEGO, then optic nerves and brain structures]
We often think of vision as seeing with our eyes, but seeing requires functioning eyes,
optic nerves and brain structures. Blindness has many causes, each with it’s own way
of damaging any of these areas.
[Animation shows how different types of blindness affect the different parts of the eye, optic
nerves and brain]
The most frequent causes of blindness are cataracts, which cloud the lens; age related
macular degeneration, the deterioration of the central part of the retina; and glaucoma,
damage to the optic nerve. And in some cases there’s cortical blindness, caused by damage
to certain brain areas.
[Picture fades to black]
In many of these cases, people lose their vision over time. Those who’ve been blind
since birth have never been able to see – well, perhaps their eyes can’t see. But their
brain can.
[Animated brain appears, then a LEGO superman]
[3 LEGO characters appear and are blindfolded to demonstrate study]
Many studies have found that auditory and tactile abilities may be enhanced in blind
individuals – they’re like sensory superheroes. In one study, researchers blindfolded participants
who were normally-sighted, vision impaired and totally blind; and they we asked to point
towards the source of a sound. The totally blind participants performed significantly
better than the other groups – they could create the most accurate spatial map without
any visual input. [LEGO character appears carrying sign saying
“behaivoural studies”] It’s important to note that further behavioural
studies have found conflicting results of this sensory compensation, maybe due to differences
in age and types of visual impairments of those tested.
[LEGO character appears carrying sign saying “image studies”]
But in imaging studies, we can see the brain of blind individuals repurposing itself. We’ve
seen activity in the visual cortex when blind children hear words, process speech and read
Braille. A recent study asked people who were blind since birth to solve algebra problems.
As the problems became harder, activity in the visual cortex increased, something that
was not seen in the sighted participants.
[Brain appears with text representing particular studies]
While our brains have a huge amount of plastic, I mean plasticity, those who have been blind
since birth can have trouble with spatial awareness, spatial reasoning and orientation.
But there are ways to improve these skills. [print-out of research appears on screen]
As one study found, an audio version of the video game DOOM - that’s right, DOOM - improved
blind subjects’ spatial cognition – how people use information about their environment
to figure out where they are. And it just so happens that LEGO helps with
this too.
[Cut back to interview with Matthew] LEGO is able to give you all of these different
opportunities be you blind or sighted to perceive your world in a different way. It’s like
this minituarization of the real world that you could potentially recreate in real life.
And it also really allows to give the blind person a sense of scale. It allows you to
see what you would be unable to feel. You can’t climb on the Taj Mahal or the Tower
Bridge or any of these famous landmarks, but with these sets you’re able to recreate
them in their full glory. [Shot of Matthew showing his LEGO Tower Bridge]
Because now that I have a there dimensional model if someone says hey we’re passing
the Empire State Building I can be like “I know what that looks like, I’ve built that!”
It’s just this idea that the impossible or improbable is now possible. And its just
a great feeling to know that you have been a part of making it possible for a group of
people. [Sequence of images of Matthew’s LEGO sets,
and a screen recording of the LEGO instructions on his website
And since Matthew has uploaded the LEGO instructions online, blind and vision impaired people around
the world have used them too. Others send back feedback and comments so it’s like
a big collaboration. That is, when Matthew is following the instructions.
This is my favourite version of Hogwarts because there’s just a croissant on the table next
to the letter and also, a shark. But there was one thing I was still wondering.
[Cut back to Matthew and Vanessa at the table] How do you experience YouTube?
So blind people have this thing called a screen reader, which is basically a robotic voice
in the background that reads everything on the page. You go to the search box and it
says “search box” so you just type as you would then you get the list of results
and you arrow down to the one you want and you click on it and it plays automatically.
And then you read the comments section and you get kind of horrified and disappointed.
So it’s yeah, that’s what I experience as a sighted person feel too. So yeah you
get the full experience.
[cut to shot of Matthew on his phone]
Okay, I found VSauce’s DONG. We click on this.
[from video] with mister nice Hands dot com
I think Michael is really descriptive when he speaks, do you find that?
Yeah it’s very relaxing, and very therapeutic.
Yeah he has a very interesting cadence, it’s like, it’s nice to listen to.
It would be very interesting if he just started, like teaching yoga slash meditation I think
he would be very good at that.
There you go Michael Stevens, a yoga channel. This is your future.
Hey why not!
[Cut to new scene]
We want comments.
You’ll get comments.
[We see Matthew tapping the iPad to get to the comments]
Okay you tap this.
314159265358979323846264338327950
Oh my gosh, somebody has left a comment that is just all of pi and your poor screenreader
woman had to read through every digit of pi.
Hey at least I stopped her in the middle of it.
[Vanessa present Matthew with a big yellow LEGO bag. It’s the STAR WARS millennium
falcon.]
We got you a new lego set.
Thank you!
Oh look there’s Rey!
Pleasure working with you Matthew. Thank you.
Of course!
[Vanessa leaves the house. Travel sequence in Boston, Vanessa eating lobster roll. Fade
to black]
[Cut to scenes of Sydney airport. Vanessa driving a car through Sydney]
I wish I had asked Matthew and Lilya if they had come up with a system to build IKEA furniture.
[Voice over]
Since we met Matthew I’ve been thinking about his comments on LEGO as a way for him
to understand what big buildings and landmarks look like–it’s something so simple that
I take for granted.
[Sequence of shots in the LEGO store in New York, where the Opera House set is for sale]
Lilya said she just got the Sydney Opera House set and has started to adapt it to text – the
set is 2,989 pieces.
[Screen recording of flicking through the LEGO instructions for the Sydney Opera House]
It’s their biggest challenge yet.
The Opera House is also my favourite building, so I’m excited for Matthew to get to see
it.
[Cut to Vanessa walking towards and around the Opera House]
[Cut to Vanessa sitting on the Opera House steps]
So Matthew can’t look at a picture of the Opera House, or even look at the sails in
real life to experience it. But by using a model, he can then create a spatial map, feel
it and imagine how beautiful it is.
Matthew can still see it, perhaps just a little differently to how a sighted person would.
And then he can take that information and construct other buildings–he can be a LEGO
architect. Really, we’re all only limited by our own imaginations. And how many bricks
you have.
[Cut to end card - then credits]
I’d like to thank Google’s Making & Science team for supporting this video. You can find
more videos like this by searching with the hashtag #sciencegoals
Braincraft
Directed, Produced and Animated by Vanessa Hill.
With Cinematography and Editing by Ella Colley.
[Cut to Matthew singing and playing the piano]
There is a test that is known to many people.
This is a test that I know you probably know.
It’s difficult for some, but simple for others. It baffles people with many words
they not know.
It is the S A T standard aptitude, I don’t mean altitude, oh no I don’t.