Spazialità e cecità: un’analisi sui verbi di moto in non vedenti italiani

Abstract

In the last few years, the strategies of spatial representation adopted by blind and sighted subjects have been extensively studied. In particular, there is evidence that early deprivation of vision encourages the adoption of egocentric spatial representations. In order to shed light on this matter, we analysed the motion verbs used by blind and sighted Italian speakers while describing small-scale and large-scale environments. Th e two groups adopted diff erent spatial representations for small-scale environments, coherently with the basic assumptions of the Embodied Cognition Hypothesis. However, such a difference was not found for larger-scale environments, thus supporting a more symbolist approach to cognition.