We examined the effect of visual experience on the haptic Müller-Lyer illusion. Subjects made size estimates of raised lines by using a sliding haptic ruler. Independent groups of blindfolded-sighted, late-blind, congenitally blind, and low-vision subjects judged the sizes of wings-in and wings-out stimuli, plain lines, and lines with short vertical ends. An illusion was found, since the wings-in stimuli were judged as shorter than the wings-out patterns and all of the other stimuli. Subjects generally underestimated the lengths of lines. In a second experiment we found a nonsignificant difference between length judgments of raised lines as opposed to smooth wooden dowels. The strength of the haptic illusion depends upon the angles of the wings, with a much stronger illusion for more acute angles. The effect of visual status was nonsignificant, suggesting that spatial distortion in the haptic Müller-Lyer illusion does not depend upon visual imagery or visual experience.

An experiment was conducted with blind individuals to examine the effect of visual experlence on the horizontal-vertical illusion In touch. Groups of early blind, late blind, and low vision subjects examined tangible raised-line drawings of L and Inverted T figures. A tangible sliding ruler was used for size estimates. The results showed that the horizontal-vertical illusion was not dependent upon visual experience or visual imagery, since similar illusory overestimation of the verticals occurred with early blind, late blind and low vision subjects.

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The increasing amount of hot and warm stamping parts in the automotive industry shows that high temperature forming is critical to reach the emission goal fixed by regulation authorities, due to its contribution in reducing the vehicle’s weight. Hot stamping and warm forming take advantage of the material softening with temperature to reduce the forming forces and springback. The use of different temperature conditions also enables exploring the phase transformation occurring with in-tool quenching in hot stamping boron steels or artificial aging in heat treatable lightweight aluminum alloys. These new forming conditions require either new material characterization methods or the current methods need to be adapted to high temperature conditions. The equibiaxial expansion test allows the evaluation of the mechanical behavior of materials on a large strain range. However, the use of high temperature conditions gives rise to difficulties when using Digital Image Correlation (DIC) systems. This study analyses the possibility of using a scanner laser to obtain the stress vs. strain curve from an equibiaxial test performed with an aluminum alloy of the 6xxx series, at 150°C. The aim is to validate an experimental procedure that can be used to evaluate the stress vs. strain curve from high temperature bulge tests performed with other metallic sheets, including quenchable boron steel.