CROSS MODAL DISCRIMINATION IN SEVERELY/PROFOUNDLY RETARDED ADULTS

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether severely/profoundly retarded adults are capable of transferring across the visual and tactual modalities a dimension-relevant discrimination. The results indicated that some individuals may be capable of transferring dimensional information from the visual to the tactual modality, but not the reverse, and that there is a positive correlation between the transfer of dimensional and cue information from the visual to the tactual modality which may not be contingent upon verbal mediators. These findings partially support Zeaman and House's (1963) attention theory as well as place the verbal mediation theory of cross modal transfer in doubt, or at least suggest an availability/utilization hierarchy. Replication of this study is strongly recommended to confirm these findings.