The Grand Challenges of Blind Spatial Cognition: What Is Needed for Solutions in 2020 and Beyond
Speaker
Nick GiudiceLocation
Sage Center, Psychology 1312Info
In this talk I will discuss three of the ‘big’ issues related to spatial cognition and blindness: education, employment, and navigation. I will describe why solutions have not been forthcoming and argue for a holistic approach involving several paradigmatic shifts in how we think and conduct research that are needed in order to make true advances. These include an ideological shift in how we conceptualize vision and vision loss, a shift in how we conduct research with blind individuals, and a shift in how we design information access technologies. The proposed solutions will be described in terms of their theoretical grounding as well as what they suggest as best practices for implementation. Examples and demonstrations from current research projects will be used to motivate the talk and to highlight future research directions.
