Mental Maps and the Use of Sensory Information by Blind and Partially Sighted People

Abstract

The paper aims to fill an important gap in the literature by reporting on blind and partially sighted people's use of spatial representations (mental maps) from their perspective and when travelling on real routes. The results presented here were obtained from semi-structured interviews with 100 blind and partially sighted people in five different countries. They are intended to answer three questions about the representation of space by blind and partially sighted people, how these representations are used to support travel and the implications for the design of travel aids and orientation and mobility training. They show that blind and partially sighted people do have spatial representations and that a number of them explicitly use the term mental map. The paper discusses the variety of approaches to spatial representations, including the sensory modalities used, the use of global or local representations and the applications to support travel. The conclusions summarise the answers to the three questions and include a two-level preliminary classification of the spatial representations of blind and partially sighted people.

Traveling More Independently: A Study on the Diverse Needs and Challenges of People with Visual or Mobility Impairments in Unfamiliar Indoor Environments

“…Many people with disabilities also use technologies such as websites, online forums, online imagery and existing location-based technologies to assess the accessibility of a building and often cross-check using multiple strategies [28,29,35]. 1 These sections are an extended version of [18] Technology is used by people with VI to build a mental map [30] before starting a journey by retracing the steps and recounting details of a trip such as street names or intersections [35].…”

“…They can be retrieved from abstract sources of information such as tactile maps (remembering scanning tactile information), descriptions (remembering audio information), or from real physical experiences (memorizing spatial cognition) and visual memories in later blind people. The use of these information sources depends heavily on the individuals themselves and are often used in diferent combinations [30].…”

“…Some people with BL use diferent environmental characteristics such as landmarks and obstacles to recall and conirm their path [72] whereas people with LV or some of the late blind people use also visual cues for orientation [30]. In addition, some people with BL use auditory cues (e.g.…”

“…In addition, some people with BL use auditory cues (e.g. sound of usage of an elevator, machines behind a reception desk), tactile feedback (loor texture indicating the transition to another part of the building) and olfactory cues [3,30]. Thus, all diferent kind of information seems to be useful for supporting people with VI orient themselves.…”

A Participatory Design Approach to Creating Echolocation-Enabled Virtual Environments

“…Some of this research has attempted to replicate echolocationÐthe use of sound and echoes produced by sound relecting of diferent surfaces [50,51]Ðto improve accessibility in digital games and VR experiences for people with visual impairment [2,6,28,58,70,84,103]. Echolocation has been used, for example, to help detect obstacles [77,84], and to support the formation of mental maps of virtual space [5,28,40,58]. However, more work is needed to ensure that echolocation in virtual spaces responds to the needs of people with visual impairment.…”