Formalizing cognitive and motor strategy of haptic exploratory movements of individuals who are blind

Perception and action are closely related in the haptic modality. While there have been a few psychological studies exploring the haptic exploration procedures of blind and sighted individuals, the results of these studies have been very abstract and have not proven to be useful in the design of computer applications. In order to develop natural and intuitive haptic interfaces, deeper knowledge of haptic manual exploration strategies is needed. This work details psychophysical experiments performed with individuals, who are blind or visually impaired, to understand their cognitive and motor exploration strategies. The paper further suggests how the exploration strategies discovered by these experiments can be used to design proactive haptic interfaces between humans and machines. Such haptic interfaces have great potential as an assistive technology for individuals who are blind.