Dr Alison Eardley - research visit 5th July 2019

Dr Alison Eardley – University of Westminster

The early research of Eardley, explored the imagination and imagery in the blind and the sighted with current work in the field of multi-sensory museums (Eardley et al., 2018) and initial email contact established further connections to recruit hard to reach population sub-group participants for case-study using snowball sampling (Sadler et al., 2010). Case-study contacts, stemming from the initial email correspondence with Dr Eardley are outlined in the case-study section later in this document.

Building upon this research her work in the field of multi-sensory museums, Eardley suggests that research in cognitive neuroscience and psychology have shown that multisensory exposure enhances performance for perceptual and memory tasks (Eardley et al., 2018). The discussion meeting with Dr Eardley, focused toward her research in the differentiation between visual and spatial, defined as visio-spatial. Eardley studies the working memory model relating to visual scale and suggests that, when comprehending a large visual scale, for example a cityscape,  the visual sense is best for capturing rapid spatial information. However, when understanding spaces of a smaller scale, for example a cup and notebook placed upon a coffee table, the sense of touch, is equally able to process rapid spatial information.

Both Professor Ravenscroft at the SSC and Dr Eardley recommended a network connection with Professor John Kennedy, a retired researcher from Toronto University, who explores the assumptions of perspective in blind artists (Kennedy, 1993). Email dialogue regarding this research project has since commenced with Professor Kennedy through contact via Dr Eardley and further discussions, regarding the project have been scheduled during the second year of research.