Styles of mental imagery in blind adults.
Two tests of mental imagery were administered to six blind and four sighted subjects. One test, involving pictorial imagery, required subjects to imagine a checkerboard of which only certain squares, specified by the experimenter, were filled in; the other test was similar but emphasized nonpictorial imagery, requiring subjects to imagine a three-dimensional assemblage of small cubes. In both cases, the subject's task was to name a common object which the imaged pattern resembled. It was found that the greater the proportion of life for which each of the blind subjects had been without sight, the less was his or her pictorial score, expressed as a proportion of total imagery score. This suggests that the nature of mental imagery slowly changes following the loss of sight. Relative facility with the two types of imagery also varied from one subject to another within the sighted group; hand movements used by some of them as an aid to imagery may have been a factor in producing this variation.
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001766:Blindness / Q000151:congenital / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination; D008875:Middle Aged