Mental Maps and the Use of Sensory Information by Blind and Partially Sighted People
Marion Hersh · 2020 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing · doi:10.1145/3375279
Summary
This qualitative study addresses a significant gap in understanding how blind and partially sighted people form and use spatial representations (mental maps) during real-world travel. Through semi-structured interviews with 100 participants across five countries (France, Italy, Poland, Spain, and the UK), the research explores three questions: how blind people represent space and what sensory modalities they use, how these representations support travel, and what implications exist for travel aid design and orientation and mobility (O&M) training. Participants included early blind (24%), late blind (44%), and partially sighted (32%) individuals with diverse travel aid use—58% used canes, 21% guide dogs, and 7% electronic canes. The methodology treated participants as experts on their own experiences, using flexible questioning to capture individual variation in how people conceptualize and describe their spatial understanding. This approach yielded rich first-person accounts that move beyond laboratory experiments to document mental map use during actual travel.
Key findings
The study confirms that blind and partially sighted people do form spatial representations, with many explicitly using the term "mental map." These representations vary substantially in format—some are schematic (abstract diagrams using lines and geometric shapes), while others are realistic (detailed images including colors and street layouts). Participants described two distinct approaches to building representations: local-to-global (accumulating details then synthesizing them) versus global-to-local (starting with an overall framework and filling in details). Mental maps serve multiple travel functions: organizing route information, enabling preview and anticipation of upcoming features, preventing getting lost, supporting route planning and variation, and providing context when asking directions. The research identified diverse sensory modalities contributing to mental maps: tactile information from maps and cane contact, auditory landmarks, proprioceptive "body memories" of routes, and visual memories for those with prior sight. Notably, participants distinguished between retaining tactile information as sensory memories versus auditory information as data—suggesting different cognitive processing pathways. The author proposes a two-level classification: sensory information (type and presentation as memory vs. information) and representation characteristics (schematic/realistic, static/dynamic, perspective, global/local).
Relevance
This research has direct implications for electronic travel aid (ETA) development and O&M instruction. Travel aids should present information in formats compatible with users' existing mental map structures—understanding that some users work from global frameworks while others build from local details. The finding that mental maps enable preview and anticipation functions (which sighted travelers accomplish visually) suggests ETAs should prioritize advance information about upcoming landmarks and obstacles. For O&M instructors, the diversity of spatial representation strategies indicates training should help individuals identify and strengthen their preferred approaches rather than imposing a single method. The study also highlights that physical/proprioceptive memories of routes (body positioning, leg movements, surface textures) represent an underutilized dimension of spatial learning that could be explicitly developed in training. The research challenges technology-driven development by emphasizing that successful aids must align with end-user cognitive frameworks rather than simply providing more environmental data.
Tags: blindness · low vision · orientation and mobility · wayfinding · cognitive maps · spatial representation · qualitative research · travel aids