Strategies for Knowledge Acquisition from Cartographic Maps by Blind and Visually Impaired Adults

Abstract

Two experiment are reported both of which employed a research design originally used by Thorndyke and Stasz (1980) to elicit the spontaneous strategies of map readers, and to relate these to their skill in map reading. In Experiment 1, blind, visually impaired and sighted children explored a tactile or a print map while “thinking aloud”. The protocols obtained were analysed according to a set of strategy types. The children were also asked to produce a copy of the map to test knowledge of it. These were according to accuracy. Experiment 2 used the same basic copy procedure with blind, visually impaired and sighted adults, who explored a more complex town map and plan of a building. Sighted participants produced more accurate copies of the map, and used strategies that focused on global spatial relations on the map, while blind and visually impaired participants tended to focus on individual localised elements of the map. However, those blind and visually impaired participants who produced more accurate copies of the maps, tended also to adopt a more global focus.