In 2 experiments, participants learned bone anatomy by using a handheld controller to rotate an on-screen 3-dimensional bone model. The on-screen bone either included orientation references, which consisted of visible lines marking its axes (orientation reference condition), or did not include such references (no-orientation reference condition).…

New tactile curriculum materials for teaching Earth and planetary science lessons on rotation=revolution, silhouettes of objects from different views, contour maps, impact craters, asteroids, and topographic features of Mars to 11 elementary and middle school students with sight impairments at a week-long residential summer camp are presented…

Recent research that assessed spatial judgments about multisensory stimuli suggests that humans integrate multisensory inputs in a statistically optimal manner by weighting each input by its normalized reciprocal variance. Is integration similarly optimal when humans judge the temporal properties of bimodal stimuli? Twenty-four participants…

Multisensory peripersonal space develops in a maturational process that is thought to be influenced by early sensory experience. We investigated the role of vision in the effective development of audiotactile interactions in peripersonal space. Early blind (EB), late blind (LB) and sighted control (SC) participants were asked to lateralize…

We investigated the role of visual experience on the spatial representation and updating of haptic scenes by comparing recognition performance across sighted, congenitally and late blind participants. We first established that spatial updating occurs in sighted individuals to haptic scenes of novel objects. All participants were required to…

The study examined whether spontaneous variations in the frame of reference occurring over time have a more substantial effect on haptic mental rotation abilities of four blindfolded sighted subjects than of four adventitiously blind subjects. Results indicated the mental rotation functions for the two groups were virtually identical. (Author/DB)

The authors investigated the mechanical basis of length perception through dynamic touch using specially designed rods in which the various moments of mass distribution (mass, static moment, and rotational inertia) were varied independently. In a series of 4 experiments, exploration style and rod orientation were manipulated such that the relative…

Initial research is reported on development of a tangible graphics (a display with raised symbols for reading by hand rather than by eye) system and its evaluation by 20 blind adults. Results suggested that tangible graphs are a viable source of spatial information for blind readers. (Author/MC)

Mental mapping of spaces is essential for the development of efficient orientation and mobility skills. Most of the information required for mental mapping is gathered through the visual channel. Blind people lack this crucial information, facing in consequence difficulties in mapping as well as navigating spaces. The work reported here is based…

Superior performance by adventitiously blind Ss relative to congenitally blind Ss appeared on tasks where the stimuli were complex, familiar and/or apprehenced with arm's length of the body, but not on tasks where the stimuli were relatively simple, novel, and/or apprehenced only through locomotion. (Author/MC)

Witelson found that boys but not girls showed right-hemisphere specialization for tactile-spatial processing as early as six years. Witelson's task was administered to 46 normal four- and five-year olds. Both sexes showed right-hemisphere specialization. No sex differences appeared either in specialization or in overall performance. (Author/SJL)

Viewing a threatening stimulus can bias visual attention toward that location. Such effects have typically been investigated only in the visual modality, despite the fact that many threatening stimuli are most dangerous when close to or in contact with the body. Recent multisensory research indicates that a neutral visual stimulus, such as a light…

Figures that undergo an implied rotation are remembered as being slightly beyond their final position, a phenomenon called representational momentum. Eight experiments explored the questions of what gets transformed and what types of transformations induce such representational distortions. (GDC)

We investigate how vision affects haptic performance when task-relevant visual cues are reduced or excluded. The task was to remember the spatial location of six landmarks that were explored by touch in a tactile map. Here, we use specially designed spectacles that simulate residual peripheral vision, tunnel vision, diffuse light perception, and…

Two experiments involving 42 students from the Model Secondary School for the Deaf investigated both the visual and tactile components in the processing of spatial information. Test measures used were the Figures Rotations Test, Group Embedded Figures Test, and Tactile Rotations Test. The study suggested that spatial reasoning is a determining…