The Influence of Visual Experience on Visual and Spatial Imagery

Differences are reported between blind and sighted participants on a visual-imagery and a spatial-imagery task, but not on an auditory-imagery task. For the visual-imagery task, participants had to compare object forms on the basis of a (verbally presented) object name. In the spatial-imagery task, they had to compare angular differences on the basis of the position of clock hands on two clock faces, again only on the basis of verbally presented clock times. Interestingly, there was a difference between early-blind and late-blind participants on the visual-imagery and the spatial-imagery tasks: late-blind participants made more errors than sighted people on the visual-imagery task, while early-blind participants made more errors than sighted people on the spatial-imagery task. This difference suggests that, for visual (form) imagery, people use the channel currently available (haptic for the blind; visual for the sighted). For the spatial-imagery task in this study reliance on haptic processing did not seem to suffice, and people benefited from visual experience and ability. However, the difference on the spatial-imagery task between early-blind and sighted people in this study might also be caused by differences in experience with the analogue clock faces that formed the basis for the spatial judgments.

[1]  S. Millar.  Understanding and Representing Space: Theory and Evidence from Studies with Blind and Sighted Children , 1994 .

[2]  R. Moyer.  Comparing objects in memory: Evidence suggesting an internal psychophysics , 1973 .

[3]  Albert Postma,et al.  Effects of Hand Orientation and Delay on the Verbal Judgment of Haptically Perceived Orientation , 2005, Perception.

[4]  F. Newcombe,et al.  Selective loss of imagery in a case of visual agnosia , 1992, Neuropsychologia.

[5]  Mark Hollins,et al.  Styles of mental imagery in blind adults , 1985, Neuropsychologia.

[6]  T. Vecchi.  Visuo-spatial processing in congenitally blind people: Is there a gender-related preference? , 2001 .

[7]  A. Paivio,et al.  Comparisons of mental clocks. , 1978, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[8]  Matthijs L. Noordzij,et al.  The influence of visual experience on the ability to form spatial mental models based on route and survey descriptions , 2006, Cognition.

[9]  M. Conson,et al.  Categorical and coordinate spatial processing in the imagery domain investigated by rTMS , 2006, Neuropsychologia.

[10]  J. F. Herman,et al.  Cognitive Mapping in Blind People: Acquisition of Spatial Relationships in a Large-Scale Environment , 1983 .

[11]  D. Levine,et al.  Visual and spatial mental imagery: Dissociable systems of representation , 1988, Cognitive Psychology.

[12]  R. Goebel,et al.  Matching two imagined clocks: the functional anatomy of spatial analysis in the absence of visual stimulation. , 2000, Cerebral cortex.

[13]  C. Cornoldi,et al.  Processing Capacity Limitations in Pictorial and Spatial Representations in the Totally Congenitally Blind , 1993, Cortex.

[14]  C. Thinus-Blanc,et al.  Representation of space in blind persons: vision as a spatial sense? , 1997, Psychological bulletin.

[15]  R. Moyer,et al.  Mental comparison and the symbolic distance effect , 1976, Cognitive Psychology.

[16]  C. Cornoldi,et al.  Interactive Auditory and Visual Images in Persons who are Totally Blind , 1999 .

[17]  R. Klatzky,et al.  Performance of Blind and Sighted Persons on Spatial Tasks , 1995 .

[18]  E. D. de Haan,et al.  Visual imagery without visual experience: evidence from congenitally totally blind people , 2001, Neuroreport.

[19]  D. Kaski.  Revision: Is Visual Perception a Requisite for Visual Imagery? , 2002, Perception.

[20]  Rainer Goebel,et al.  Coordinate and categorical judgements in spatial imagery. An fMRI study , 2002, Neuropsychologia.

[21]  E. Spelke,et al.  Spatial knowledge in a young blind child , 1984, Cognition.

[22]  S. Kosslyn.  Image and Brain: The Resolution of the Imagery Debate , 1994, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.