Despite visual impairments, blind people sometimes make judgments about others based on race just as individuals with healthy sight do, according to a new study. (File photo. JAIME REINA/AFP/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (CBSDC) — Despite visual impairments, blind people sometimes make judgments about others based on race just as individuals with healthy sight do, according to a new study.

Researchers interviewed 25 people over the phone who were either born blind or severely visually impaired, as reported by CNN. The interviewer asked the participants whether they thought about race and if it affected their feelings toward an individual.

Though the study indicates that blind people are still capable of racially stereotyping, the findings also suggest that it took visually-impaired people longer to categorize people by race.

Asia M. Friedman, an assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice at University of Delaware and study author, says that five of the nine individuals who were blind since birth or early childhood reported that they didn’t think about a person’s appearance at all. Some participants noted that the inability to know a person’s race at site prevented them from making quick judgments.

Physical attributes aside, other participants say they have categorized people racially based on other cues such as voices and names, and that those calculations have led to stereotypes on a person’s lifestyle, behavior, or even class.

“I think blind people are inculturated into ideas about class and race,” just like anybody else, Friedman told CNN.

The new research may help people understand how the topic of racism is viewed and the depth of racism in the country.

“Blind people understand race the same way as sighted people,” said Osagie K. Obasogie, a professor of law at University of California Hastings College of Law, told CNN.

Obasogie says that he would push back against the idea that blind people “somehow enter every social interaction with a blank slate.” In separate study conducted with more than 100 blind people, Obasogie found that some participants said they might ask about a person’s race prior to meeting or might try to figure out a person’s race while interacting.

“If race is such a strong and deep part of our social order that blind people who have never seen anything can see and pay attention to race… it shows how deep the problem is,” he added.