A comparison of haptic material perception in blind and sighted individuals

Abstract

We investigated material perception in blind participants to explore the influence of visual experience on material representations and the relationship between visual and haptic material perception. In a previous study with sighted participants, we had found participants' visual and haptic judgments of material properties to be very similar (Baumgartner, Wiebel, & Gegenfurtner, 2013). In a categorization task, however, visual exploration had led to higher categorization accuracy than haptic exploration. Here, we asked congenitally blind participants to explore different materials haptically and rate several material properties in order to assess the role of the visual sense for the emergence of haptic material perception. Principal components analyses combined with a procrustes superimposition showed that the material representations of blind and blindfolded sighted participants were highly similar. We also measured haptic categorization performance, which was equal for the two groups. We conclude that haptic material representations can emerge independently of visual experience, and that there are no advantages for either group of observers in haptic categorization.

Aging and the Haptic Perception of Material Properties

“…The categories employed were the same as those used by Baumgartner et al. (2013, 2015). The results obtained for our 13 younger adults were very similar to those obtained by Baumgartner et al.…”

“…The experimental stimuli consisted of six exemplars of seven material categories (paper, plastic, wood, metal, fur/leather, fabric, and stone): These are the same categories as those used by Baumgartner et al. (2015; also see Baumgartner et al., 2013).…”

“…Previous studies evaluating the perception of material properties have used a variety of tasks. Participants typically feel materials such as wood, plastic, fur, or metal, and then order them in terms of dimensions such as roughness (Bergmann Tiest & Kappers, 2007), rate their dissimilarity using magnitude estimation (Bensmaïa & Hollins, 2005), or place them into perceptually distinct categories (Baumgartner, Wiebel, & Gegenfurtner, 2013, 2015; Bergmann Tiest & Kappers, 2006). The primary purpose of the current study was to determine whether aging affects the perception of material properties.…”

Mental Imagery Follows Similar Cortical Reorganization as Perception: Intra-Modal and Cross-Modal Plasticity in Congenitally Blind

“…However, other studies have indicated the opposite: that early visual exposure in sighted individuals enhances performance on haptic tasks, while blind individuals show impaired performance -especially in tasks that relied on a spatial component (Bailes and Lambert 1986;Pasqualotto and Newell 2007;Postma et al 2008;Gori et al 2010). Yet other studies found no evidence for differences in haptic perception performance between blind and sighted participants (Heller 1989b;Morrongiello et al 1994;Gentaz and Hatwell 1998;Grant et al 2000;Postma et al 2007;Heller et al 2008;Alary et al 2009;Picard et al 2010;Norman and Bartholomew 2011;Baumgartner et al 2015;Bonino et al 2015). Neuroimaging studies of haptic perception mainly found overlapping neural recruitment between congenitally blind and sighted participants, with the exception of the visual areas, which were more (extensively) activated in congenitally blind participants (Rosler et al 1993;Roder et al 1997;Ricciardi et al 2007;Amedi et al 2010;Bauer et al 2015).…”

Using Immersive Virtual Reality to Examine How Visual and Tactile Cues Drive the Material-Weight Illusion

“…The role of haptic information provides a useful comparison to vision in the context of the MWI because research suggests that haptic cues are vital for perception of materials (Baumgartner et al, 2013). Furthermore, haptic and visual representations of material appear to be independent from one another, but correlate highly (Baumgartner et al, 2013(Baumgartner et al, , 2015, suggesting they will both be relevant to the MWI task. By investigating how visual and haptic representation of materials influences perception of heaviness in the MWI, we can begin to understand how the modality through which information is received can influence resulting perceptual judgements.…”