TY - GEN ID - cogprints1509 UR - http://cogprints.org/1509/ A1 - Espinosa, Maria Angeles A1 - Ungar, Simon A1 - Ochaita, Esperanza A1 - Blades, Mark A1 - Spencer, Christopher Y1 - 1998/// N2 - This paper reports two experiments which compared the effectiveness of different methods for introducing blind and visually impaired people to the spatial layout of urban environments. In Experiment 1, 30 blind and visually impaired adults learned a long and complex route through an area of central Madrid (Spain) either by direct experience or by a combination of direct experience and a tactile map or a combination of direct experience and a verbal description of the area. Performance on measures of practical spatial knowledge and of representational spatial knowledge was significantly better in participants in the tactile map condition. In Experiment 2, participants learned a similar route in an area of Sheffield (Britain) using either just a tactile map of by direct experience. No significant difference was found between the two conditions using the same measures as in Experiment 1. PB - Academic Press KW - environmetal cognition KW - blind KW - blindness KW - visual impairment KW - tactile map KW - spatial cognition KW - wayfinding TI - Comparing methods for introducing blind and visually impaired people to unfamiliar urban environments SP - 277 AV - public EP - 287 ER -