How would you go about than learn to that the nonverbal expression of emotions is innate rather than learned? Darwin answered this question by observing children who had been blind from birth. He reasoned that it would be impossible for these children to have learned the intricacies of nonverbal expression of emotions, since they could not observe others. His observations and those that followed showed that the emotional expression of both blind and blind-and-deaf children was similar to that of sighted children for a number of emotions (Eibl-Eibesfeldt, 1970; Thompson, 1941)