Spatial Localization by the Blind

This research is concerned with the ability of blind people to orientate themselves within, and to localize aspects of, their spatial environment. Since vision, the most accurate kind of spatial information, is not available to the blind, they must base their localization-judgments upon information which is relatively less reliable. Nevertheless, the ability of blind people to perceive objects often appears quite uncanny to the sighted observer and it has variously been supposed that they have either developed their remaining senses to a higher degree of acuity than sighted people or have developed an extra sense of some kind with which they are able to localize stimuli in space.1 After vision, the most important of the spatial senses are tactile-kinesthesis (hereafter referred to as 'tactile') and audition.