Morrongiello B A, Humphrey G K, Timney B, Choi J, Rocca P T
Department of Psychology, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada.
Perception. 1994;23(7):833-48. doi: 10.1068/p230833.
Development of the haptic system was evaluated by examining object exploration and recognition in sighted children between the ages of 3 and 8 years. To determine the importance of visual experience for these abilities, the performance of seven congenitally blind children was compared with that of sighted peers matched for age and gender. Performance was evaluated in terms of the speed and correctness of object identification, thoroughness of exploration of object parts, representation of the global form versus local parts of objects, and the possible role of critical parts in object identification. Four types of common objects were presented: normal-sized, miniaturized small, miniaturized large, and oversized objects. All subjects were required to manipulate and identify these objects haptically, without the aid of vision. Results revealed the emergence of a developmental pattern in all performance measures for sighted children. Older sighted children were not only able to recognize more objects and to do so more quickly, but also were more thorough in their exploration patterns. With increasing age, children appear to change their representation of objects from one based predominantly on global shape to one that incorporates a balance of global shape and specific local parts. In agreement with this, critical parts also played a role in object identification, particularly in older children. Blind and sighted children did not differ in any performance measures, which suggests that previous visual experiences do not determine tactile exploration strategies and are not essential for haptic object recognition.
通过检查3至8岁视力正常儿童的物体探索和识别能力，对触觉系统的发育进行了评估。为了确定视觉体验对这些能力的重要性，将7名先天性失明儿童的表现与年龄和性别相匹配的视力正常同龄人进行了比较。从物体识别的速度和准确性、物体各部分探索的彻底性、物体整体形状与局部形状的表征以及关键部分在物体识别中的可能作用等方面对表现进行了评估。呈现了四种常见类型的物体：正常大小、小型化的小物体、小型化的大物体和超大物体。所有受试者都被要求在不借助视觉的情况下，通过触觉操作和识别这些物体。结果显示，视力正常儿童在所有表现指标上都呈现出一种发展模式。年龄较大的视力正常儿童不仅能够识别更多的物体，而且识别速度更快，并且在探索模式上也更加彻底。随着年龄的增长，儿童似乎将他们对物体的表征从主要基于整体形状转变为一种包含整体形状和特定局部部分平衡的表征。与此一致的是，关键部分在物体识别中也起到了作用，尤其是在年龄较大的儿童中。失明儿童和视力正常儿童在任何表现指标上都没有差异，这表明以前的视觉体验并不能决定触觉探索策略，对于触觉物体识别也不是必不可少的。
