@windex I have repeated this many times on Fluther so I am reluctant to say it again, but congenital blindness is not the same thing as you putting on a blindfold and trying to negotiate the world. Congenital blindness is a state that you have always experienced, your whole life. It feels comfortable and natural, and while it can be inconvenient, it is just not a major deficit.
My girlfriend is a psychotherapist, and does a lot of work with children. Her bosses were reluctant to hire her because they couldn’t imagine how she could do a Global Assessment on a new intake without being able to see the patient. It took about 3 weeks for them to realize that she could actually spot many, many things that they consistently missed because they were only using their eyes, whereas she had a much broader spectrum of assessment tools available to her.
In the 8 or so years we have been together, I have never seen her evaluate a person’s affect or demeanor incorrectly. In fact, she is much more likely to catch something “off” about a person way before I do.
Your question is due to a fundamental misunderstanding about the role of vision in the congenitally blind: the vision centers in the occipital, frontal and temporal lobes are still there in the brain, and still functioning. It;s just that through neuroplasticity
they are processing nerve input that is other than visual. It’s haptic, aural, tactile, aromatic, etc. Blind people can do well on “mental traveling” tasks that scientists once assumed they could never perform because they had no visual experience. It turns out that doesn’t matter.
Whatever my girlfriend is “missing”, if she is “missing” anything, is entirely inconsequential. Sighted people miss a great deal more than she does; I see that happen every day.