Manipulating haptic spatial reference frame preference by blindfolding sighted participants

Abstract

Research done by Struiksma, Noordzij & Postma in 2011 has shown a discrepancy between reference frame preferences in blind, low-vision, and sighted subjects on the horizontal, but not the vertical plane. In the horizontal plane sighted and low-vision participants did not differ in their reference frame preferences, but the blind showed a clear preference for the intrinsic frame in favor of the absolute/relative frame. The question remains whether this differences is caused by the blindness in the latter participants or from the fact that the first two groups could use concurrent visual inputs on the environmental background.: noninformative vision. Non-informative vision can be influential on reference frame preference and could explain the discrepancy between the preferences of blind and sighted subjects. This research aimed to determine whether manipulating non-informative vision has an influential role on the reference frame preference. Participants were told to haptically explore three identical sets of seven boxes. For each box a response was provided. Responses were measured on a 7-point Likert scale. Results indicate that participants either blindfolded or with non-informative vision show almost similar results without any significant interaction between conditions. This refutes the hypothesis that removing visual information from sighted participants influences reference frame preference.