The Spatio-Cognitive Abilities of the Visually Impaired Population

Abstract

This article reports on an experiment undertaken to test the spatiocognitive competence of the visually impaired population in regard to wayfinding. The test consisted of eight basic wayfinding tasks, each representing a particular spatio-cognitive operation. The tasks were executed in a labyrinthian layout allowing for control of the difficulty level of the tasks and limiting extraneous perceptual factors, which tended to interfere with the measure of spatio-cognitive abilities. The experimental groups were composed of congenitally totally blind, adventitiously totally blind, and subjects with a weak visual residue; the control was established by a sighted and a sighted blindfolded group. The sample's 18 subjects per group were matched in terms of age, education, and sex. The performance results of the visually impaired groups in all eight tasks led to rejection of any spatio-cognitive deficiency theory. The performance of the congenitally totally blind group, in particular, shows that spatio-cognitive competence can be acquired without vision and without previous visual experience. The congenitally totally blind tend to perform better than the adventitiously totally blind and the sighted blindfolded groups, but not as well as the sighted and the group with a visual residue. The visually impaired groups, in general, tend to take more time to complete the tasks than the sighted control group. The results also show that age and education affect performance, but sex does not.