Blind lead the way in brave new world of tactile technology
From: R&D Magazine - 07/02/2014

New research at the University of California, Berkeley has found that people
are better and faster at navigating tactile technology when using both hands
and several fingers. Moreover, blind people in the study outmaneuvered their
sighted counterparts - especially when using both hands and several fingers -
possibly because they've developed superior cognitive strategies for finding
their way around. 

In this latest study, Valerie Morash, a doctoral student in psychology at UC
Berkeley, and fellow researchers at UC Berkeley and the Smith-Kettlewell Eye
Research Institute in San Francisco tested 14 blind adults and 14 blindfolded
sighted adults on several tasks using a tactile map. Using various hand and
finger combinations, they were tasked with such challenges as finding a
landmark or figuring out if a road looped around.

Overall, both blind and sighted participants performed better when using both
hands and several fingers, although blind participants were, on average, 50%
faster at completing the tasks, and even faster when they used both hands and
all their fingers.

Read the entire article at:
http://www.rdmag.com/news/2014/07/blind-lead-way-brave-new-world-tactile-technology
http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2014/07/01/touch-technology/
http://www.mdtmag.com/news/2014/07/blind-lead-way-brave-new-world-tactile-technology

Link:
Valerie Morash
http://www.valeriemorash.com/