Torø Graven, Dr at the University of Oxford

Discrimination Strategies

– How specialised are they?

Previous research on how tactile 2D information is discriminated, has focused on either braille characters or shape features. It has investigated whether braille characters are coded as outline shapes or dot patterns, or what shape feature geometry is recognised the most proficiently, e.g. acute or obtuse angle.

In contrast, Torø recently focused on both. She investigated how individuals who are blind described discriminating braille characters, e.g. L from Ns and R from Vs, and shape features, e.g. angle from straight lines and angle from curves, including ranking target-discriminating features in importance – their discrimination strategy.

In this session you will learn about the strategies people describe using when discriminating (1) braille characters and (2) shape features, including their ranking of target-discriminating features in order of importance. Torø will discuss how specialised these discrimination strategies are.