The Effects of Visual Experience and Training in Raised-Line Materials on the Mental Spatial Imagery of Blind Persons

Recent studies have shown that the mental imagery of people who are blind and those who are sighted share some of the same characteristics, for example, in the memory of concrete or abstract words, or the increase of response time in mental rotation tasks as a function of the angle of rotation (Cornoldi & Vecchi, 2003). However, some specific features of blind people's mental imagery have been noted (Arditi, Holtzman, & Kosslyn, 1988 ; Cornoldi & Vecchi, 2003) that probably result from the particular functioning of touch, including a small perceptual field, sequential processing, and specific exploratory procedures. These characteristics may overload attention and working memory, and it is assumed that a mental process of integration and synthesis is required to form a unitary image of objects (Revesz, 1950). Vecchi, Tinti, and Cornoldi (2004) observed that congenitally blind people were poorer at recalling more than a single pattern at a time.