On the matching of seen and felt shape by newly sighted subjects

doi:10.1068/i0525ic

i-COMMENT

On the matching of seen and felt shape by newly sighted subjects

John Schwenkler

Department of Philosophy, Bradley Hall, Mount St. Mary's University, 16300 Old Emmitsburg Road, Emmitsburg, MD 21727 USA

schwenkler@msmary.edu

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Abstract. How do we recognize identities between seen shapes and felt ones? Is this due to associative learning, or intrinsic connections these sensory modalities? We can address this question by testing the capacities of newly sighted subjects to match seen and felt shapes, but only if the subjects can see the objects well enough to form adequate visual representations of their shapes. In light of this, a recent study by R. Held and colleagues fails to demonstrate that their newly sighted subjects' inability to match seen and felt shape was due to a lack of intermodal connections rather than a purely visual deficit, as the subjects may not have been able visually to represent 3D shape in the perspective-invariant manner required for intermodal matching. However, the study could be modified in any of several ways to help avoid this problem.

Cite as: Schwenkler J, 2012, "On the matching of seen and felt shape by newly sighted subjects" i-Perception 3(3) 186–189
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DOI: 10.1068/i0525ic

ISSN: 2041-6695 (electronic only)

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