Abilities and strategies of blind and sighted subjects in visuo-spatial imagery

Vanlierde, Annick; Wanet-Defalque, Marie-Chantal

doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2004.03.001

Cited by 67 publications

(75 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…The results obtained in previous studies (Vanlierde and Wanet-Defalque, 2004; Cornoldi et al, 2009) seem to suggest that dissimilarities in the strategies employed may indeed mediate the observed performance differences between blind and sighted participants. For example, verbal strategies appear to be more effective than spatial strategies for early- and congenitally blind, whereas the opposite holds for the late-blind and the sighted (Vanlierde and Wanet-Defalque, 2004; Cornoldi et al, 2009). Despite the existence of previous research investigating the behavioral effects of reliance on different cognitive styles, the effect of individual preferences for object imagery, spatial imagery and verbalizing has not been investigated in the blind, to the best of our knowledge.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 72%

“…Previous studies comparing spatial imagery abilities in the sighted and the blind have yielded inconsistent results (see Renzi et al, 2013 for a review), some showing little difference (Vanlierde and Wanet-Defalque, 2004; Vecchi et al, 2004; Giudice et al, 2011) but others reporting that the blind are impaired compared to the sighted (Vecchi, 1998; Aleman et al, 2001; Knauff and May, 2006; Cornoldi et al, 2009). For example, Vecchi (1998) found that the congenitally blind were less accurate than the sighted when tested on a task that involved learning target squares and pathways on haptic matrices.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By contrast, blind and sighted participants showed equivalent performance on spatial judgments from different imagined perspectives on visually and haptically learned maps, and both groups exhibited evidence for spatial updating (Giudice et al, 2011). Vanlierde and Wanet-Defalque (2004) required early-, late-blind and sighted participants to imagine shapes in a matrix, following line-by-line descriptions as to whether each square was black or white, and to make symmetry judgments. Despite the demanding nature of the encoding process, the three groups performed similarly but employed different strategies, the late-blind and sighted using mental imagery while the early-blind used a coordinate system that was not visually based.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Loss of form vision impairs spatial imagery

Occelli

Lin

Lacey

et al. 2014

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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Previous studies have reported inconsistent results when comparing spatial imagery performance in the blind and the sighted, with some, but not all, studies demonstrating deficits in the blind. Here, we investigated the effect of visual status and individual preferences ("cognitive style") on performance of a spatial imagery task. Participants with blindness resulting in the loss of form vision at or after age 6, and age-and gender-matched sighted participants, performed a spatial imagery task requiring memorization of a 4 × 4 lettered matrix and subsequent mental construction of shapes within the matrix from four-letter auditory cues. They also completed the Santa Barbara Sense of Direction Scale (SBSoDS) and a self-evaluation of cognitive style. The sighted participants also completed the Object-Spatial Imagery and Verbal Questionnaire (OSIVQ). Visual status affected performance on the spatial imagery task: the blind performed significantly worse than the sighted, independently of the age at which form vision was completely lost. Visual status did not affect the distribution of preferences based on self-reported cognitive style. Across all participants, self-reported verbalizer scores were significantly negatively correlated with accuracy on the spatial imagery task. There was a positive correlation between the SBSoDS score and accuracy on the spatial imagery task, across all participants, indicating that a better sense of direction is related to a more proficient spatial representation and that the imagery task indexes ecologically relevant spatial abilities. Moreover, the older the participants were, the worse their performance was, indicating a detrimental effect of age on spatial imagery performance. Thus, spatial skills represent an important target for rehabilitative approaches to visual impairment, and individual differences, which can modulate performance, should be taken into account in such approaches.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 72%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Loss of form vision impairs spatial imagery

Occelli

Lin

Lacey

et al. 2014

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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“…In fact, visual imagery has been found to play a critical role in mediating tactile perception and recognition in normally sighted individuals (see Lacey et al, 2010, Scocchia et al, 2009), as also is suggested by the involvement of the occipital cortex in haptic discrimination (e.g., Merabet et al, 2007, Merabet et al, 2004). Accordingly, different studies suggest that prior visual experience can be used by the late blind to support their haptic and auditory perception, thereby helping them to generate a mental representation of the surrounding environment (e.g., Alary et al, 2008, Postma, Zuidhoek, Noordzij, & Kappers, 2008, Vanlierde & Wanet-Defalque, 2004). …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of vertical and horizontal symmetry on memory for tactile patterns in late blind individuals

Cattaneo

Vecchi

Fantino

et al. 2012

Atten Percept Psychophys

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Visual stimuli that exhibit vertical symmetry are easier to remember than stimuli symmetric along other axes, an advantage that extends to the haptic modality as well. Critically, the vertical symmetry memory advantage has not been found in early blind individuals, despite their overall superior memory, as compared with sighted individuals, and the presence of an overall advantage for identifying symmetric over asymmetric patterns. The absence of the vertical axis memory advantage in the early blind may depend on their total lack of visual experience or on the effect of prolonged visual deprivation. To disentangle this issue, in this study, we measured the ability of late blind individuals to remember tactile spatial patterns that were either vertically or horizontally symmetric or asymmetric. Late blind participants showed better memory performance for symmetric patterns. An additional advantage for the vertical axis of symmetry over the horizontal one was reported, but only for patterns presented in the frontal plane. In the horizontal plane, no difference was observed between vertical and horizontal symmetric patterns, due to the latter being recalled particularly well. These results are discussed in terms of the influence of the spatial reference frame adopted during exploration. Overall, our data suggest that prior visual experience is sufficient to drive the vertical symmetry memory advantage, at least when an external reference frame based on geocentric cues (i.e., gravity) is adopted.

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“…Vanlierde et al [24] also found a similar pattern of activation for blind and sighted participants in a spatial imagery task of 2D matrices, involving the precuneus, superior parietal lobule and occipital gyrus, however, participants differed in their strategy. Sighted participants used a visual imagery strategy, while blind participants used an X-Y coordinate strategy [24], [26]. Whereas Stilla et al [23] also observed a similar network for blind and sighted individuals in a tactile microspatial discrimination task, the effective connectivity differed between the blind and sighted.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Spatial Language Processing in the Blind: Evidence for a Supramodal Representation and Cortical Reorganization

et al. 2011

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Neuropsychological and imaging studies have shown that the left supramarginal gyrus (SMG) is specifically involved in processing spatial terms (e.g. above, left of), which locate places and objects in the world. The current fMRI study focused on the nature and specificity of representing spatial language in the left SMG by combining behavioral and neuronal activation data in blind and sighted individuals. Data from the blind provide an elegant way to test the supramodal representation hypothesis, i.e. abstract codes representing spatial relations yielding no activation differences between blind and sighted. Indeed, the left SMG was activated during spatial language processing in both blind and sighted individuals implying a supramodal representation of spatial and other dimensional relations which does not require visual experience to develop. However, in the absence of vision functional reorganization of the visual cortex is known to take place. An important consideration with respect to our finding is the amount of functional reorganization during language processing in our blind participants. Therefore, the participants also performed a verb generation task. We observed that only in the blind occipital areas were activated during covert language generation. Additionally, in the first task there was functional reorganization observed for processing language with a high linguistic load. As the visual cortex was not specifically active for spatial contents in the first task, and no reorganization was observed in the SMG, the latter finding further supports the notion that the left SMG is the main node for a supramodal representation of verbal spatial relations.

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Abilities and strategies of blind and sighted subjects in visuo-spatial imagery

Cited by 67 publications

References 22 publications

Loss of form vision impairs spatial imagery

Loss of form vision impairs spatial imagery

The effect of vertical and horizontal symmetry on memory for tactile patterns in late blind individuals

Spatial Language Processing in the Blind: Evidence for a Supramodal Representation and Cortical Reorganization

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