ABSTRACT: Although research on touch began during the 19thy century with psychophysical studies on cutaneous discriminations, there are still much less studies on haptics than on vision or audition. However, the new technologies now available have allowed a considerable development of our knowledge on haptic functioning during the last two decades. In this survey, I will evoke some major findings concerning the activation of the “visual” cortex by haptic stimulation in blind and sighted people, the specific modes of processing information in haptics (role of movement and exploratory procedures, role of gravity and force cues, etc), and the characteristics of visual-haptic crossmodal coordination. These findings will be discussed in the light of some of their applications to education, blindness, medical and general ergonomy, etc.

Biography of Pr. Yvette Hatwell: Yvette Hatwell is now emeritus professor of psychology at the University Pierre Mendès-France in Grenoble (France). She studied psychology in Paris and was then researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (Laboratory of Experimental Psychology in Paris and Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles). In 1964, she became Assistant Professor at the University of Paris and, in 1968, she moved as professor of psychology at the University of Geneva, in Switzerland, in the department directed by professor Jean Piaget. Finally, she established (1973) as professor at the University Pierre Mendès-France in Grenoble where she created and directed during 15 years a research centre in experimental and cognitive psychology (Laboratoire de Psychologie Expérimentale, named today Laboratoire de Psychologie et NeuroCognition).

Her research concerns haptic perception in blind and blindfolded sighted children and adults. More specifically, she studied first the effects of early and permanent visual deprivation on the cognitive development of children and young adults. Then, Yvette Hatwell worked on the characteristics and the development of haptic perception and visuo-haptic intermodal coordination in children and young adults. Her experimental observations are published in a number of articles, books and book chapters, and are summarized in the following recent comprehensive books: