Influence of writing style and categorical information on identification of tactile numerals and letters

Abstract

Recognition of print capital letters, script letters, and numerals was studied in three experiments. In Experiment 1, letters printed on the skin with component lines in an irregular sequence were much harder to name than normally printed stimuli. In Experiment 2, categorical information was an important aid to letter or number identification. This obtained when subjects were required to draw the tactile stimuli. The results suggested that observers may not always construct a veridical “image” when stimuli are drawn on the skin in the absence of categorical information. Performance was much lower for script than for print letters or numerals. In Experiment 3, passive script recognition was superior to active script recognition. This suggested that passivity per se cannot always explain difficulty in tactile symbol recognition. © 1991, The Psychonomic Society, Inc.. All rights reserved.