TY - JOUR
T1 - Spatial representation of objects in the young blind child
AU - Landau, Barbara
N1 - Funding Information:
*This work was supported by Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Grant #12-214 from the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation to Barbara Landau, I thank Deanna Stecker for assistance in every phase of this work and Ted Wright for helpful suggestions on the analyses. I also thank Barbara Gochberg and Rachel Dresner for assistance in the project, and the parents, teachers, and children of the New York Lighthouse, the Columbia Greenhouse, and the Medical Center Nursery School for their generous support and participation. Address correspondence to the puthor at the Ccpartment of Psychology, Columbia University. 315 Schcrmcrhorn Hall, New York, NY 10027, U.S.A.
PY - 1991/2
Y1 - 1991/2
N2 - Four experiments investigated the young blind child's ability to discover, construct and transform representation of objects, in particular those that preserve the spatial relationships among object parts. Experiment 1 showed that three 18-36-month-old blind children systematically explored novel objects using distinctive haptic manipulations linked to novel shape versus texture. Experiments 2, 3 and 4 pursued a single blind child's ability to represent and transform the spatial configurations of objects. By 2 1 12 years, this child was able to rapidly recognize and identify familiar geometric figures following brief exploration (Experiment 2). By 3 years, she was able to recognize novel objects under 180° rotations when their configurations differed from distractors only in the spatial relationships holding among object parts (Experiment 3). At this age, she was also able to infer the locations corresponding to spatial parts of novel objects (the top, bottom, front, back and side) when the objects were upright or rotated, defined only by the location of a single "anchor" term that established their orientation (Experiment 4). In all cases, the blind child's performance was quite similar to that of sighted controls. The results indicate that visual experience is not necessary for the early natural emergence of the capacity to represent and transform spatial descriptions of objects.
AB - Four experiments investigated the young blind child's ability to discover, construct and transform representation of objects, in particular those that preserve the spatial relationships among object parts. Experiment 1 showed that three 18-36-month-old blind children systematically explored novel objects using distinctive haptic manipulations linked to novel shape versus texture. Experiments 2, 3 and 4 pursued a single blind child's ability to represent and transform the spatial configurations of objects. By 2 1 12 years, this child was able to rapidly recognize and identify familiar geometric figures following brief exploration (Experiment 2). By 3 years, she was able to recognize novel objects under 180° rotations when their configurations differed from distractors only in the spatial relationships holding among object parts (Experiment 3). At this age, she was also able to infer the locations corresponding to spatial parts of novel objects (the top, bottom, front, back and side) when the objects were upright or rotated, defined only by the location of a single "anchor" term that established their orientation (Experiment 4). In all cases, the blind child's performance was quite similar to that of sighted controls. The results indicate that visual experience is not necessary for the early natural emergence of the capacity to represent and transform spatial descriptions of objects.
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U2 - 10.1016/0010-0277(91)90050-E
DO - 10.1016/0010-0277(91)90050-E
M3 - Article
C2 - 2049904
AN - SCOPUS:0026114396
SN - 0010-0277
VL - 38
SP - 145
EP - 178
JO - Cognition
JF - Cognition
IS - 2
ER -