The Spatio-Cognitive Abilities of the Visually Impaired Population

Abstract

This article reports on an experiment undertaken to test the spatiocognitive competence of the visually impaired population in regard to wayfinding. The test consisted of eight basic wayfinding tasks, each representing a particular spatio-cognitive operation. The tasks were executed in a labyrinthian layout allowing for control of the difficulty level of the tasks and limiting extraneous perceptual factors, which tended to interfere with the measure of spatio-cognitive abilities. The experimental groups were composed of congenitally totally blind, adventitiously totally blind, and subjects with a weak visual residue; the control was established by a sighted and a sighted blindfolded group. The sample's 18 subjects per group were matched in terms of age, education, and sex. The performance results of the visually impaired groups in all eight tasks led to rejection of any spatio-cognitive deficiency theory. The performance of the congenitally totally blind group, in particular, shows that spatio-cognitive competence can be acquired without vision and without previous visual experience. The congenitally totally blind tend to perform better than the adventitiously totally blind and the sighted blindfolded groups, but not as well as the sighted and the group with a visual residue. The visually impaired groups, in general, tend to take more time to complete the tasks than the sighted control group. The results also show that age and education affect performance, but sex does not.

Nonvisual navigation by blind and sighted: Assessment of path integration ability.

“…Passini, Proulx, and Rainville (1990) compared sighted, congenitally blind, and adventitiously blind subjects on eight wayfinding tasks in a labyrinthian layout. The congenitally blind subjects tended to perform better than the other groups.…”

Understanding spatial concepts at the geographic scale without the use of vision

“…Passini and Proulx (1988: 247) concluded that blind individuals do understand thè geometric characteristics of a setting to an extent that is comparable to a sighted individual' and that any differences are due to distant cues and visual reference points not accessible to the individual. Passini et al (1990) replicated these findings using a complex maze setting involving eight different tasks including inverting a route, combining routes, learning models and executing behaviour, making short cuts and mental rotations, and building models of a layout. Whether these representations are route or configurationally based is unknown.…”

“…To date, most research into blind people's spatial ability has concentrated upon the conceptualization of small-scale spaces such as a room (Tellevik, 1992;Haber et al, 1993;Hill et al, 1993) or a building (Passini and Proulx, 1988) and hypothetical spaces such as a purpose-built maze in a room (Klatzky et al, 1990;Passini et al, 1990) with little research into large-scale geographic spaces such as an urban park or a residential area (Byrne and Salter, 1983;Rieser et al, 1992). Other researchers have concentrated upon how visually impaired individuals learn an environment through different media, such as tactile maps (Golledge, 1991;Jacobson, 1992;Ungar et al, 1994).…”

“…They found that newcomers to a complex building preferred using ordered signs rather than interpreting you-are-here maps where distance and direction had to be remembered. In parallel to some of this research, Haber et al (1993) examined a variety of ways that vision-deficit people used to indicate location and direction, while Passini et al (1990) have examined the way visiondeficit groups learn routes through complex environments (a maze) and take shortest paths back to the origin of the trip.…”

Spatial representation and low vision: Two studies on the content, accuracy and utility of mental representations

“…In fact, the literature on spatial cognition by individuals who are blind or have low vision is filled with contradictions and interpretations (Warren, 1984;Thinus Blanc & Gaunet, 1997). While efforts have been made (Passini, 1990;Kitchin et al, 2001;Ungar et al, 1997), there is still a considerable amount of research conducted with small sample sizes and confined to laboratory type settings (Fletcher, 1980;Landau, 1984;Rieser, 1986;Bigelow, 1991). This is coupled with the absence of mutually supportive techniques to account for the heterogeneity of skills between participants.…”