Abstracts Psychology

An investigation of the experience variable in visual-tactual conflict

by Alice Anne Donnell

After a discussion of the influence of experience on perception and a survey of the literature on visual-tactual conflict a previous series of experiments examining the effects of tactual training on perception of minified squares, was described. This led to a similar experiment involving varying amounts of tactual training. Although little support was obtained for the hypothesis that when vision and touch are placed in conflict the demonstrated dominance of vision is due, at least in part, to a difference in previous experience obtained by the two senses at the tasks involved, further experiments were carried out suing Doveprism apparatus. The effects of tactual training with verbal feedback, tactual feedback and no feedback were investigated. While results of a control group showed that there was little change in repeated judgments when not actual training was given, visual dominance was shown to decrease when verbal or tactual knowledge of results (feedback) accompanied tactual training. This decrease did not occur when no feedback was given. It was concluded that the relative familiarity of the displays presented to the two senses must be taken into account before the results of conflict experiments can justifiably be interpreted as indicating an inherent superiority of vision.