Psychology

Summary of the article
Thompson, Chronicle, and Collins (2006) begin their article with the general discussion of the topic. This discussion is not a purely literature review but, rather, is a brief analysis of the previous findings related to how blind people identify and interpret objects and raised-line pictures. The authors confirm that only few attempts have ever been made to create pictures for blind people based on the knowledge of haptic perception (Thompson, Chronicle  Collins, 2006), although the importance of creating such pictures and objects for the blind is difficult to underestimate. Moreover, very often, blind people experience difficulties when facing multiple objects because the presence of numerous objects makes it difficult to maintain the correct spatial configuration of different object parts (Thompson, Chronicle  Collins, 2006). For this reason, the authors of the article seek to adopt an alternative principle of 3-D object recognition in combination with 2-D tactile picture design.

Thompson, Chronicle and Collins (2006) describe design principles and representation system. The authors show that for their study to be successful, (1) the 3-D form of a 2-D representation had to be clear and (2) in the 2-D representation, the spatial relations between the 3-d parts geons should be maintained (Thompson, Chronicle  Collins, 2006). In order to make the representation of these features real, a new representation system had to be created and according to Thompson, Chronicle and Collins (2006), only such system could make the distinction between the visual field and the visual world real. The process of developing the representation system covered the two stages pilot testing and TexyForm pictures. The system of TexyForm pictures was developed based on the principles of haptic object recognition, with the three variations of the same texture used to represent horizontal and vertical picture elements (Thompson, Chronicle and Collins, 2006). The study included forty-two participants that were divided into the three different groups those with early-onset blindness, those with late-onset blindness, and sighted but blindfolded research subjects. All participants were presented with eight different visually realistic (VR) pictures and TexyForm pictures.

Independent and dependent variables
Independent variables were presented by the two different types of pictures  visually realistic pictures and TexyForm pictures. The list of dependent variables included picture identification accuracy, picture exploration time, and overall picture-type evaluation score (Thompson, Chronicle  Collins, 2006). It is interesting, that the authors also provide the list of extraneous variables in other words, these are the variables that may have serious impact on the quality of interpreted results. Here, extraneous variables included length of visual impairment, tactual experience, tactile diagram experience, and age group (Thompson, Chronicle  Collins, 2006).

Results
In the process of analyzing and interpreting results, several forms of statistical analysis were used, including ANOVA and Kruskal-Wallis. Kruskal-Wallis statistical analyses revealed no significant differences in the quality of TF picture identification among the three groups. However, the ANOVA test that followed confirmed significant impact, which the type of picture produced on the quality of picture identification. Another interesting finding was in that the two groups of blinded individuals found it much easier to identify the TF pictures than the VR images, while individuals from the sighted but blindfolded group made no distinction between the two groups of images (Thompson, Chronicle  Collins, 2006). In any case, blinded individuals did not face any difficulties with identifying TF pictures, while the exploration and identification of VR images always required more effort and time. These results validate previous findings and turn TF pictures into a useful element of professional research.