Memory for Verbally Presented Routes: A Comparison of Strategies Used by Blind and Sighted People

Experiments were conducted to determine the manner in which congenitally blind and sighted people remember verbal route descriptions. Subjects listened to route descriptions and were then required to perform either spatial or abstract/verbal sentence verifications before finger tracing those routes through a raised line matrix. Route tracing speed and accuracy revealed that for both congenitally blind and sighted subjects, spatial sentence verification interfered more with route memory, even though the spatial verifications were easier than the verbal/abstract verifications for both subject groups when performed alone. The finding indicates that both blind and sighted people transform verbal route descriptions into a spatial imagery form to guide finger tracing. If spatial information is remembered using an imagery strategy, then tactile maps may be better suited than verbal maps for conveying spatial information to blind travelers.