STRATEGIES FOR KNOWLEDGE ACQUISITION FROM CARTOGRAPHIC MAPS BY BLIND AND VISUALLY-IMPAIRED ADULTS

Two experiments are reported both of which employed a research design originally used by Thorndyke and Stasz (1980) to elicit the spontaneou s strategies of map readers, and to relate these to their skill in map reading. In Experiment 1, blind, visually impaired and sighted childr en explored a tactile or a print map while ''thinking aloud''. The pro tocols obtained were analysed according to a set of strategy types. Th e children were also asked to produce a copy of the map to test their knowledge of it. These were rated according to accuracy. Experiment 2 used the same basic procedure with blind, visually impaired and sighte d adults, who explored a more complex town map and plan of a building. Sighted participants produced more accurate copies of the map, and us ed strategies that focused on global spatial relations on the map, whi le blind and visually impaired participants tended to focus on individ ual localised elements of the map. However, those blind and visually i mpaired participants who produced more accurate copies of the maps, te nded also to adopt a more global focus.