ABSTRACT
Blind individuals can draw outline pictures in a raised form (Kennedy, 2003). Their drawings include many features to do with an observer’s vantage point. Of course these are found in many perspective pictures drawn by the sighted, even in quite young children’s drawings, but they are often assumed to be purely matters of sight. The drawings by the blind require us to question such assumptions, and to challenge theories of the neural basis of perception and spatial cognition. So here we consider the theory of outline, and argue that via haptics blind people develop an appreciation of directions from an observer (Millar, 1994, 2002) and, thereby, a basis for projection (Heller & Kennedy, 1990).
