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Abstract
The study reported here was an attempt to determine the ability of individuals to read words presented tactually. This information has practical implications for military or other situations where the weapon or machine operator may be required to operate his equipment in the absence of visual cues. Six subjects made a total of 540 identifications of words ranging from two to seven letters in length. The average time of performance ranged approximately linearly from 5-5 sec. for two letters to 24-5 sec. for seven letter words. Practice with 90 words during a one hour session resulted in an overall improvement of 29 per cent in time of response. It was also indicated that repeated practice with the same words would reduce the time of performance even further. It is concluded that the time required to impart this type of information to an operator via the touch sense makes this technique practical for most situations where visual cues
The accuracy of responses was 97-2 per cent. This high degree of accuracy might be improved even further by repeated practice with the same words, a redesign of troublesome letters and a determination of the optimum dimensions for tactually presented characters. Other avenues of possible future research were also pointed out