The research is concerned with non-visually guided navigation by blind and by blindfolded observers. All experimental tasks involve locomotion through a work area of 30m by 30m; some segments of travel will involve guidance by the experimenter while others will involve free locomotion. The experiments will attempt to analyze navigation performance into two major components: (1) perception of distance and heading changes and (2) cognitive representation of surrounding space and transformations of this representation during locomotion. Precision of the first component will be assessed by simple tasks such as estimation, reproduction, and bisection of distances or angles. The second component will be assessed by more complex tasks, such as having the observer (1) return to the start point after being guided over two legs of a triangle and (2) proceed directly between two locations that are known previously by traveling between each and a common origin. The research will also evaluate the utility of a stereophonic auditory display as an interface to a digital map system. The research will add to our understanding of the apprehension of space without vision and will aid in the development of an effective display to be used in conjunction with those digital map/navigation systems which are coming into use and may some day prove useful for the visually impaired.
