There seems to be a fundamental similarity in the way that persons who are blind and those who are sighted process and use pictorial information (Kennedy, 1993). A possible reason for this similarity is the partial overlap (D'Angiulli, 2004) between vision and haptics; namely, the notion that some core principles of the depiction of objects in the form of an outline are based on objective shapes (Kennedy & Bai, 2002) that contain a few essential structural features that are accessed in the same physical space and are perceived equivalently through baptics and vision. An alternative view, however, is that similarities in the processing of pictures by people who are blind and those who are sighted are not the result of the direct perception of the shape of objects. Rather, these similarities are by-products of tactile (Hopkins, 2000), specifically, of inferences that are based on aspects that are related to touching objects without visual feedback. That is, although visual experience itself presents one with the shape of an outline, tactile experience may not do so; it may enable one only to construct some form of indirect knowledge that describes the shape of an outline. Haptics would enable a person to deduce the shape of an object by going beyond perceptual experience. Thus, in most cases, the partial overlap that entails the identification of raised-line pictures is based on the perception of patterns, as in vision. In contrast, tactile beliefs imply elaborate mental representations that build on haptic experience but are unrelated to vision. In this study, a child, Carlo, who was born completely blind, was invited to explore and identify, by name, a set of raised-line pictures without receiving feedback about the accuracy of his identification. He was then asked to explain, verbally or by drawing, why he believed that the names he suggested accurately identified the depicted objects. If the processing of raised-line pictures is indeed based mainly on the perception of the shape of objects shared by vision and haptics, Carlo's identification rate would be similar to the rate that was previously reported for participants who are blind and sighted, who attempted to identify raised-line pictures without the availability of visual information from the pictures (see, for example, D'Angiulli, Kennedy, & Heller, 1998; Kennedy & Bai, 2002). In addition, there would be no relationship between the accuracy of identification and Carlo's tactile beliefs (about what the pictures may represent). If the identification of raised-line pictures was based primarily on inferring a meaning-based interpretation of the picture (even if the two accounts were not mutually exclusive and beliefs somehow compounded or added to partial overlap), then Carlo's beliefs would be related to the accuracy of identification. METHOD Participant Carlo, a 13-year old boy who was born completely blind and who attended a school for children with visual impairments in Milan, Italy, was recontacted from a pool of candidates who were initially recruited but found ineligible for another study. The present investigation was conceived as a single-case pilot study. A follow-up developmental study with comparison groups of various ages and visual statuses is under way. The presumed cause of Carlo's blindness was an unconfirmed rare genetic disease. The standard pediatric evaluation revealed no pupillary reflex or reaction to light at birth. Carlo was writing and reading braille by age 7 and was experienced in exploring and making pictures. Both he and his parents gave their consent for Carlo to participate in the study. Ethical approval was obtained by the board of the Italian National Institute for the Blind (Unione Nazionale Ciechi, Milan). Materials The stimuli were nine raised-line pictures. Eight pictures, taken from D'Angiulli et al. (1998), were used as targets on the first and second blocks of identification trials (henceforth referred to as the introductory and experimental blocks or trials, respectively); these pictures represented an apple, cup, scissors, telephone, key, happy face, bottle, and table. …