IntroductionThe purpose of this study was to examine picture perception and linear perspective in people who are blind and those with low vision. Thus, perspective drawings provide very useful depth information for vision, but our aim here was to examine linear perspective and viewpoint effects in haptics. A further aim was to identify possible causes for difficulty in the perception of raised-line pictures that depict depth relations. We know that the viewpoint of a picture can matter in vision, and it is plausible to expect that some tangible pictures may vary in their utility as a function of viewpoint.There has been relatively little research on depth perception in haptic displays (see Holmes et al 1998), and even less on linear perspective in haptics and the blind. Several studies in this area are noteworthy. Holmes et al (1998) recently presented texture gradients to early-blind and to sighted subjects. The subjects were asked to set a board to the appropriate slant after being given texture-gradient depictions that specified depth. They found that the early-blind subjects were able to perform as well as the sighted when asked to interpret these texture gradients. Arditi et al (1988) questioned whether blind people imagine the world using linear perspective, or even understand what that means. They asked blind people to imagine familiar objects of different sizes at a near and a far distance. The subjects were then asked to point to the sides of these imagined objects. According to Arditi et al, the congenitally blind subjects failed to show an understanding that image size decreases with distance.Recently, Kennedy has provided a relatively optimistic appraisal of the value of tangible pictures for blind people (Kennedy 1993(Kennedy , 1997; also see Heller et al 1996a). According to Kennedy, outlines can be felt, just as they can be seen. Outlines represent surface edges for touch, on this view, and blind people are able to understand linear Abstract. Perception of raised-line pictures in blindfolded-sighted, congenitally blind, late-blind, and low-vision subjects was studied in a series of experiments. The major aim of the study was to examine the value of perspective drawings for haptic pictures and visually impaired individuals. In experiment 1, subjects felt two wooden boards joined at 458, 908, or 1358, and were instructed to pick the correct perspective drawing from among four choices. The first experiment on perspective found a significant effect of visual status, with much higher performance by the low-vision subjects. Mean performance for the congenitally blind subjects was not significantly different from that of the late-blind and blindfolded-sighted subjects. In a further experiment, blindfolded subjects drew tangible pictures of three-dimensional (3-D) geometric solids, and then engaged in a matching task. Counter to expectations, performance was not impaired for the 3-D drawings as compared with the frontal viewpoints. Subjects were also especially fast and more accurate when matching top vie...
We examined the effect of visual experience on the haptic Müller-Lyer illusion. Subjects made size estimates of raised lines by using a sliding haptic ruler. Independent groups of blindfolded-sighted, late-blind, congenitally blind, and low-vision subjects judged the sizes of wings-in and wings-out stimuli, plain lines, and lines with short vertical ends. An illusion was found, since the wings-in stimuli were judged as shorter than the wings-out patterns and all of the other stimuli. Subjects generally underestimated the lengths of lines. In a second experiment we found a nonsignificant difference between length judgments of raised lines as opposed to smooth wooden dowels. The strength of the haptic illusion depends upon the angles of the wings, with a much stronger illusion for more acute angles. The effect of visual status was nonsignificant, suggesting that spatial distortion in the haptic Müller-Lyer illusion does not depend upon visual imagery or visual experience.
Abstract. Blindfolded sighted, congenitally blind, late-blind, and very-low-vision subjects were tested on a tangible version of the embedded-figures test. The results of ANOVAs on accuracy measures yielded superior performance by the very-low-vision and late-blind subjects compared with the blindfolded sighted and congenitally blind participants. Accuracy of the congenitally blind subjects was similar to that of the blindfolded sighted participants. However, all groups of blind subjects were significantly faster than the blindfolded sighted subjects. It is suggested that experience with pictures combined with haptic skill aid perceptual selectivity in touch.
In this article, Heather Steffen reflects on her recent participation in a student-faculty collaborative research project, All Worked Up: A Project about Student Labor, and her experience teaching critical university studies. She considers the questions: What does critical university studies offer to students? What can students contribute to critical university studies? And how might such exchanges lead us beyond scholarship, enable us to build solidarity, and empower us to invent a new university, our university, that serves students, scholar-teachers, and its diverse publics rather than the imperatives of neoliberal capital? Because critical university studies has both scholarly and social justice goals, Steffen argues, we must continually look for ways to connect our research and writing to collective action. Research collaborations involving students, faculty, staff, and community members are not only important sites for learning and teaching, but also for creating the personal relationships, networks, knowledge base, and skills required to build solidarity and enact change in higher education.
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