STRATEGIES FOR CONSTRUCTING SPATIAL REPRESENTATIONS USED BY BLIND AND SIGHTED SUBJECTS

The study was designed to investigate imagery strategies used by blind and sighted individuals and their ability to operate spatial representations. Performance accuracy in the imagery tasks was confirmed to be similar in the blind individuals with no visual memories and in the sighted subjects. On the other hand, the findings showed differences in preferred imagery strategies. The sighted, more often than the blind subjects, used the strategy of visualizing spatial matrices. The blind subjects applied a tapping strategy more often than the sighted ones. Additional analysis focused on the function of working memory systems in processing spatial stimuli by the blind and sighted subjects.