Comparative Analysis of Touch and Vision

In our previous communication (1), we set forth the results of a study of intersensory transfer in children of pre-school age. Recognition of a wrong geometrical figure was taken as an index of this transfer. In other words, the test object presented visually had then to be recognized and found haptically and, contrariwise, a test object presented haptically had to be sought out and identified visually. Thus, in the process of preliminary familiarization with the test object, a mental mnemic image (for example, visual) was established, which was then compared to the haptically identified figure. When the data thus obtained were analyzed, the question arose as to whether the problem of preliminary memorization of the shape posed great difficulties among pre-school children, masking the dynamics of interrelations between the two sensory modalities in the pre-school age. Therefore, in the present investigation of intersensory interrelationships, we attempted to eliminate the reliance upon memorization of the figures, and presented them simultaneously for haptic and visual familiarization and selection.