Edouard Gentaz, Professor at the University of Geneva

Touching for knowing

The haptic perceptual system integrates cutaneous, proprioceptive and motor information related to exploration movements. We’ll show that this system plays a critical role in cognitive development and the development of the knowledge of their environment in sighted and visually impaired children. It is also an effective perceptual system for the comprehension of the tactile interfaces offered today to this specific public in museums, schools and libraries. We’ll examine a selection of studies about on manual exploratory processes and the comprehension of haptic devices in 2D, and recent studies about new haptic illustrations for visually impaired children. We’ll discuss the change in the way of designing illustrations for tactile books.