Learning A Complex Urban Route Without Sight: Comparing Naturalistic versus Laboratory Measures
Year: 1998
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: In this paper we report some of the results from a study of how people with severe visual \nimpairments learn a complex route through an urban environment. Ten totally blind, ten partially \nsighted and ten sighted people learned a route 1600 meters long through a suburb of Belfast over \nfour trials. On the first trial respondents were guided around the route. On the second, third and \nfourth trials respondents led the way around the route, pointing to the start, end, and three \nlocations enroute from these locations. On completion of each trial respondents built a model of \nthe route using magnetic pieces. Analyses of these tasks found no significance differences in \npointing or model building between groups. Visually impaired and blind people did however \nmake more errors when retracing the route although by the fourth trial the majority could retrace \nwithout error. The results, in combination, reveal that people with severe visual impairments can \nlearn complex routes through a geographic environment both quickly and efficiently. The \ncombined use of laboratory and naturalistic tasks indicated that levels of spatial knowledge do not \nnecessarily predict the ability to use those knowledges effectively in everyday spatial behaviour. \nAs such, the navigation problems facing visually impaired and blind people lie in learning new \nenvironments independently and in articulating their knowledges in wayfinding practice. These \nresults led to the adoption of the difference theory of spatial cognition. This suggests that the \ncognitive map knowledge of adventitiously blind individuals are different from the sighted rather \nthan underdeveloped or used inefficiently.
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: National Science Foundation
OpenAlex ID: W2535346452