WALKING ENVIRONMENTS FOR THE VISUALLY-HANDICAPPED : RECOGNITION OF SPACES IN A GEOMETRIC MODEL LABORATORY

摘要

In daily life it is not safe for visually-handicapped people to walk alone and often they have accidents or lose their way. In order to improve walking environments, it is important to show clearly how visually-handicapped people recognize spaces and their position in spaces, and what the clues to recognition are. In this study, in order to clarify the characteristics of search behavior, experiments are carried out in 12 kinds of model spaces of geometric plan. The behavior of the visually-handicapped is analyzed by walking locus, and the recognition of spaces, by sketch map and interview.