creators_name: Espinosa, Maria Angeles creators_name: Ungar, Simon creators_name: Ochaita, Esperanza creators_name: Blades, Mark creators_name: Spencer, Christopher type: journalp datestamp: 2002-07-23 lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:54:38 metadata_visibility: show title: Comparing methods for introducing blind and visually impaired people to unfamiliar urban environments ispublished: pub subjects: appl-cog-psy subjects: cog-psy subjects: percep-cog-psy full_text_status: public keywords: environmetal cognition, blind, blindness, visual impairment, tactile map, spatial cognition, wayfinding abstract: This paper reports two experiments which compared the effectiveness of different methods for introducing blind and visually impaired people to the spatial layout of urban environments. In Experiment 1, 30 blind and visually impaired adults learned a long and complex route through an area of central Madrid (Spain) either by direct experience or by a combination of direct experience and a tactile map or a combination of direct experience and a verbal description of the area. Performance on measures of practical spatial knowledge and of representational spatial knowledge was significantly better in participants in the tactile map condition. In Experiment 2, participants learned a similar route in an area of Sheffield (Britain) using either just a tactile map of by direct experience. No significant difference was found between the two conditions using the same measures as in Experiment 1. date: 1998 date_type: published publication: Journal of Environmental Psychology volume: 18 publisher: Academic Press pagerange: 277-287 refereed: TRUE referencetext: Altman, I. (1992). A transactional perspective on transitions to new environments. Environment and Behaviour, 24 (2), 268-280. Altman, I. and Rogoff, B. (1987). World views in psychology: Trait, interactional, organismic and transactional perspectives. In D. Stokols and I. Altman (Eds.), Handbook of environmental psychology. New York Wiley. Byrne, R.W. and Salter, E. (1983). Distances and directions in the cognitive maps of the blind, Canadian Journal of Psychology, 37, 293-299. Espinosa, M.A. (1994). Un estudio transaccional sobre la ciudad de Madrid y dos de sus barrios (A transactional study about Madrid city and two of its suburbs). Unpublished Ph.D. thesis. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Espinosa, M.A. and Ochaíta, E. (in press). Tactile maps: A useful instructional method for improving the practical spatial knowledge of visually impaired people. Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness. Espinosa, M.A., Ochaíta, E., Huertas, J.A. and Cantalejo, J.J. (1993).Three different methods of instruction for spatial learning in blind and sighted people. Paper presented at the 5th European Conference on Research on Learning and Instruction, Aix en Provence, France, 31 August to 5 September. Hirtle, S.C. and Hudson, J. (1992). Acquisition of spatial knowledge for routes. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 11 (4), 335-347. Huertas, J.A. and Ochaíta, E. (1992). The externalization of spatial representation by blind persons. Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness, 86, 398-402. Hollyfield, R.L. and Foulke, E. (1983). The spatial cognition of blind pedestrians, Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness, May, 205-210. Liben, L.S. (1988). Conceptual issues in the development of spatial cognition. In Stiles-Davis, J., Kritchevsky, M. & Bellugi, V. (ed) Spatial Cognition: Brain Bases and Development. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Lindberg, E. and Gärling, T. (1983). Acquisition of locational information in cognitive maps: automatic effortful processing?. Psychological Research, 45, 19-38. Ochaíta, E. and Espinosa, M.A. (1996). Conducta y representación: ¿Dos formas diferentes de conocer el espacio? (Behaviour and representation: Two different forms of spatial knowledge?). In Monografies Psico-Socio Ambientals, (pp. 267-273). Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona. Ochaíta, E. and Huertas, J.A. (1993). Spatial representation by persons who are blind: A study of the effects of learning and development. Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness, 87, 37-41. Ochaíta, E., Huertas, J.A. and Espinosa, M.A. (1991). Representación espacial en los niños ciegos: una investigación sobre las principales variables que la determinan y los procedimientos de objetivación más adecuado (Spatial representation in blind children: An investigation into the main determining factors and the most appropriate externalization techniques). Infancia and Aprendizaje, 54, 53-79. Passini, R. and Proulx, G. (1988). Wayfinding without vision: An experiment with congenitally totally blind people. Environment and Behaviour, 20, 227-252. Rieser, J.J., Guth, D.A. & Hill, E.W. (1986). Sensitivity to perspective structure while walking without vision. Perception, 15, 173-188. Spencer, C., Blades, M. and Morsley, K. (1989). The child in the physical environment: The development of spatial knowledge and cognition, Chichester, Wiley. Stokols, D. (1987). Scientific and policy challenges of a contextually-oriented psychology. In D. Stokols and I. Altman (Eds.), Handbook of environmental psychology. New York: Wiley. Thorndyke, P.W. and Hayes-Roth, B. (1982). Differences in spatial knowledge acquired from maps and navigation. Cognitive Psychology, 14, 560-589. Ungar, S., Blades, M. and Spencer, C. (1993). The role of tactile maps in mobility training. The British Journal of Visual Impairment, 11, 59-61. Ungar, S., Blades, M. and Spencer, C. (1995). Visually impaired children's strategies for memorising a map. British Journal of Visual Impairment, 13, 27-32. Ungar, S., Blades, M. & Spencer, C. (1996a). The ability of visually impaired children to locate themselves on a tactile map. Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness, 90, 526-535. Ungar, S., Blades, M and Spencer, C. (1996b). The construction of cognitive maps by children with visual impairments. In Portugali, J. (Ed.), The Construction of Cognitive Maps. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Ungar, S., Blades, M., Spencer, C. & Morsley, K. (1994). Can visually impaired children use tactile maps to estimate directions. Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, 88, 221-233. citation: Espinosa, Maria Angeles and Ungar, Simon and Ochaita, Esperanza and Blades, Mark and Spencer, Christopher (1998) Comparing methods for introducing blind and visually impaired people to unfamiliar urban environments. [Journal (Paginated)] document_url: http://cogprints.org/1509/1/wayfind.htm