Prior visual experience, and perception and memory of shape in people with total blindness

Abstract

The aim of this study was to explore the role of prior visual experience for tactile differentiation of object shapes. The study investigated whether people who lost their vision later in life were able to identify and recognize object shapes more accurately and faster than those who were blind from their birth. Four experiments were conducted. The first two were concerned with tactile shape differentiation, the second two with shape recognition. The hypotheses were only partially confirmed. The ‘late’ blind participants distinguished shapes more accurately than the congenitally blind (particularly in ‘simple’ perception tasks). This finding may suggest that people who have prior visual experience use an allocentric strategy when visualizing object shapes in their imagery. The ‘late’ blind participants performed the tasks more slowly than those who were congenitally blind. This may be explained by the complexity of the task, the time needed to create an allocentric representation, and discrepancy in the tactile experiences between the congenitally and late blind groups. A number of implications for further research are outlined.