Insights Of People Research Articles

Production and interpretation of perspective drawings by blind and sighted people.

In three experiments the production and interpretation of perspective drawings by blind and sighted subjects were examined. Blindfolded sighted, early-blind, and late-blind subjects first attempted to produce raised-line drawings of a surface at a number of angles-0 degree (panel horizontal), -22.5 degrees, -45 degrees, -67.5 degrees, and -90 degrees (vertical). Congenitally blind subjects did not show foreshortening in their naive raised-line drawings. However, the congenitally blind subjects were able to understand aspects of perspective, and performed as well as the blindfolded sighted and late-blind subjects in a subsequent multiple-choice task. Subjects in the multiple-choice task were required to match tangible perspective drawings to a slanted board. Although the three groups performed alike, both groups of blind subjects performed better than blindfolded sighted controls on judgments involving drawings of the vertical panel in the second experiment. In a final experiment, in which vision and touch were compared, sighted subjects were required to adjust the angle of the panel to match foreshortened, perspective drawings. This experiment yielded significantly better performance with vision than with touch, but only for drawings of the board at the vertical orientation. The results suggested that congenitally blind people may benefit from haptic exposure to raised-line configurations representing geometric perspective.

The problems of being an older driver: comparing the perceptions of an expert group and older drivers

Driving instructors' observations of older drivers were compared with the experiences of older drivers themselves using two questionnaires. Instructors were asked to compare the ease or difficulty of teaching different skills to old and young pupils, and were asked what skills they would expect to have deteriorated in an experienced driver aged 70. Instructors found teaching most skills to older pupils more difficult than to younger pupils, especially vehicle control and where more than onse source of information demanded attention at once. Older pupils learned skills involving attitude and safety mindedness more readily than younger ones. Accident statistics suggest that junctions are dangerous places for older drivers and specific difficulties suggested by the instructors gave clues as to why junctions should be so problematic. Some skills seem to be intrinsically difficult for older people, in that instructors suggested them for both older pupils and experienced drivers: for example, vigilance, speed and distance judgements and coordination. There were also skills that instructors noted learners found difficult that experienced older drivers did not, namely vehicle control skills, and there were problems older drivers had that older learners did not, namely complacency and poor attitude towards safety. Older drivers were unaware of many of the problems suggested by driving instructors and by previous research. Comparison of these problems (eg failures of attention) with those that the drivers were aware of (eg fatigue) suggested that part of the reason for this lack of insight may be poor feedback. This is discussed with reference to directions for remediation. Finally, the effect of greater experience on older people's insight and willingness to make sensible adjustments to their driving was examined.

Memory for Verbally Presented Routes: A Comparison of Strategies Used by Blind and Sighted People

Experiments were conducted to determine the manner in which congenitally blind and sighted people remember verbal route descriptions. Subjects listened to route descriptions and were then required to perform either spatial or abstract/verbal sentence verifications before finger tracing those routes through a raised line matrix. Route tracing speed and accuracy revealed that for both congenitally blind and sighted subjects, spatial sentence verification interfered more with route memory, even though the spatial verifications were easier than the verbal/abstract verifications for both subject groups when performed alone. The finding indicates that both blind and sighted people transform verbal route descriptions into a spatial imagery form to guide finger tracing. If spatial information is remembered using an imagery strategy, then tactile maps may be better suited than verbal maps for conveying spatial information to blind travelers.

Comparison of Letter Identification by Touch between Blind and Sighted People

The main purpose of this project was to see if there is a difference in performance between blind and sighted subjects when reading raised letters by feel. A secondary purpose was to attempt to find the optimum height while keeping all other variables constant. Six blind and 22 blindfolded subjects were asked to identify raised plastic letters by feel. The following confusion letters were used: E,F,P,R,G,C,O,Q,D,B,U,V,J,I,T. The heights were 1.27, 1.91 and 2.54 cm. The time it took to identify the letter and whether or not the letter was misidentified were recorded. There was not enough evidence to conclude a difference between blind and blindfolded subjects. The sizes 1.91 and 2.54 cm were not significantly different. However, 1.27 cm was harder to identify. There were significant differences between letters. There was no correlation between identification time and accuracy.