Comparing methods for introducing blind and visually impaired people to unfamiliar urban environments

This paper reports two experiments which compared the effectiveness of diff erent methods for introducing blind and visually impaired people to the spa tial layout of urban environments. In Experiment 1, 30 blind and visually i mpaired adults learnt a long and complex route through an area of central M adrid (Spain) either by direct experience or by a combination of direct exp erience and a tactile map or a combination of direct experience and a verba l description of the area. Performance on measures of practical spatial kno wledge and of representational spatial knowledge was significantly better i n participants in the tactile map condition. In Experiment 2, participants learnt a similar route in an area of Sheffield (Britain) using either just a tactile map or by direct experience. No significant difference was found between the two conditions using the same measures as in Experiment 1. (C) 1998 Academic Press.