Delphine Picard

Symbolic Use of Size and Color in Freehand Drawing of the Tree: Myth or Reality?

In this study, we tested whether children and young adults varied the size and color of their tree drawings based on hypotheses related to the emotional characterization of the drawn topic. We asked a sample of 80 5- to 11-year-old children and adults to draw a tree (baseline drawing) and then a happy versus sad tree from their imagination. Results indicate that size, but not color, is used to express emotion under free drawing conditions. We discuss implications for clinical psychologists and practitioners interpreting drawings of the tree.

Short-term memory for auditory and visual durations: evidence for selective interference effects

The present study sought to determine the format in which visual, auditory and auditory-visual durations ranging from 400 to 600xa0ms are encoded and maintained in short-term memory, using suppression conditions. Participants compared two stimulus durations separated by an interval of 8xa0s. During this time, they performed either an articulatory suppression task, a visuospatial tracking task or no specific task at all (control condition). The results showed that the articulatory suppression task decreased recognition performance for auditory durations but not for visual or bimodal ones, whereas the visuospatial task decreased recognition performance for visual durations but not for auditory or bimodal ones. These findings support the modality-specific account of short-term memory for durations.

Kin'touch: understanding how visually impaired people explore tactile maps

Tactile or interactive maps are largely used as an orientation aid for visually impaired people. Yet, little is known about haptic exploration strategies and their influence on the resultant cognitive mapping. We have designed a prototype with the potential to automatically analyze different users exploration strategies. This prototype integrates data from the MS Kinect camera and a multi-touch table. It registers location of hands and digits on a tactile map. Results of preliminary studies show that this approach is promising.

Impact of manual preference on directionality in children's drawings

The effects of handedness on directionality in drawing are already well documented in the literature, at least as far as adults are concerned. The present study investigates the impact of manual preference on directionality as seen in the drawing product and drawing process, from a developmental point of view. A total of 120 children aged 5 to 9, both right and left-handed drawers, volunteered for the study. Children were asked to draw twice from memory a set of six common objects. Results indicate that directionality in drawing product varies significantly according to manual preference in the 9-year-old children, but not in the younger age groups. The concomitant increase between 7 and 9 years of age in the use of preferred stroke directions and the impact of manual preference in the drawing process suggests that biomechanical factors might play an important role in behavioural asymmetries in drawing.

Haptic Recognition of Emotions in Raised-Line Drawings by Congenitally Blind and Sighted Adults

15 sighted and 15 congenitally blind adults were to classify raised-line pictures of emotional faces through haptics. Whereas accuracy did not vary significantly between the two groups, the blind adults were faster at the task. These results suggest that raised-line pictures of emotional faces are intelligible to blind adults.

Short-term memory for spatial configurations in the tactile modality: A comparison with vision

This study investigates the role of acquisition constraints on the short-term retention of spatial configurations in the tactile modality in comparison with vision. It tests whether the sequential processing of information inherent to the tactile modality could account for limitation in short-term memory span for tactual-spatial information. In addition, this study investigates developmental aspects of short-term memory for tactual- and visual-spatial configurations. A total of 144 child and adult participants were assessed for their memory span in three different conditions: tactual, visual, and visual with a limited field of view. The results showed lower tactual-spatial memory span than visual-spatial, regardless of age. However, differences in memory span observed between the tactile and visual modalities vanished when the visual processing of information occurred within a limited field. These results provide evidence for an impact of acquisition constraints on the retention of spatial information in the tactile modality in both childhood and adulthood.

Haptic identification of raised-line drawings: high visuospatial imagers outperform low visuospatial imagers.

It has been assumed (Lederman et al. 1990, Perception & Psychophysics) that a visual imagery process is involved in the haptic identification of raised-line drawings of common objects. The finding of significant correlations between visual imagery ability and performance on picture-naming tasks was taken as experimental evidence in support of this assumption. However, visual imagery measures came from self-report procedures, which can be unreliable. The present study therefore used an objective measure of visuospatial imagery abilities in sighted participants and compared three groups of high, medium and low visuospatial imagers on their accuracy and response times in identifying raised-line drawings by touch. Results revealed between-group differences on accuracy, with high visuospatial imagers outperforming low visuospatial imagers, but not on response times. These findings lend support to the view that visuospatial imagery plays a role in the identification of raised-line drawings by sighted adults.

The Development of Haptic Processing Skills From Childhood to Adulthood by Means of Two-Dimensional Materials.

Research into haptic perception has mostly focused on 3-dimensional objects, and more needs to be known about the processing of 2-dimensional materials (e.g., raised dots and lines and raised-line shapes, patterns and pictures). This study examines the age-related changes in various skills related to the haptic exploration of 2-dimensional raised-line and dot materials and how these skills are related to haptic picture perception. Ninety-one participants, aged 4 years to adult, were asked to perform a series of haptic tasks that entailed (a) finding dots and following lines; (b) matching elements based on texture, shape, and size; (c) matching elements based on spatial location and orientation; (d) memorising sequences of dots and shapes; and (e) identifying complete and incomplete raised-line pictures. On all the tests, the results showed that scores improved with age. Shape discrimination scores accounted for variability in comprehension scores for outline pictures. We suggested that identifying tactile pictures by touch improved with age and mainly depended on the improvement of shape discrimination skills. Résumé Les recherches dans le domaine de la perception haptique se sont principalement concentrées sur les objets tridimensionnels. Il faudrait donc en connaître davantage sur le traitement de matériaux bidimensionnels (par ex., les points et lignes en relief, les formes aux contours en relief, les schémas et les images). La présente étude examine les changements liés à l’âge de différentes aptitudes impliquant l’exploration haptique de matériaux comportant des points et des contours en relief et comment ces aptitudes sont liées à la perception haptique des images. On a demandé à 91 participants, âgés entre 4 ans jusqu’à un âge adulte avancé, d’effectuer une série de tâches haptiques qui consistaient à (a) repérer les points et les lignes correspondantes; (b) agencer des éléments en se basant sur la texture, la forme et la taille; (c) agencer des éléments en se basant sur la situation et l’orientation spatiales; mémoriser des séquences de points et de formes; et (e) identifier des images à contours en relief complets et incomplets. Dans tous les tests, les résultats ont montré que les scores s’amélioraient avec l’âge. La variabilité des scores de compréhension au niveau des contours des images était attribuable aux scores de la discrimination des formes. Nous avons suggéré que l’identification d’images tactiles par le toucher s’améliorait avec l’âge et était principalement attribuable à l’amélioration des aptitudes en termes de discrimination des formes.