Spatial coding of tactual stimulation.

Responses were paired with stimulation from six vibrators, fixed in a T formation, which 5 " contacted with the three middle fingers of each hand. After 12 learning trials, the relationship between fingers and vibrators was completely changed by reversing S's hands. In this transfer condition, some •$"5 were allowed to respond spontaneously to the stimuli; others were asked specifically to give the same responses to the same fingers or, alternatively, the same responses to the same vibrators. Results showed that 6"s learned both types of association and could transfer rather well on either basis. For 6"s with unrestricted vision, associations with vibrators (i.e., locations in physical space) were clearly stronger than finger associations; no such difference was found for blindfolded,9s. This result suggests that spatial location is represented primarily in visual terms, even when based on input from another modality. The point has been made many times— most graphically, perhaps, in Brunswik's