TACTILE MEMORY

On the assignment of creating a tactile theatre, we created a tactile memory game. It mimics the traditional memory game setup, but the visual sense is replaced by the tactile sense. We wanted to test people's tactile memory. Is it as good as the visual one?

We built a box with 30 compartments and filled it with 15 different materials; leaves, styrofoam, sand, two different qualities of sandpaper, water, bottle caps, sawdust, banana peels, berries, bubble wrap, paper, metal shavings, sponges and gravel. The compartment lids had openings with a fabric lock to make it hard to see the contents.

The challenge was finding tactile pairs and identifying the materials.

User tests provided useful feedback. Some of our test persons were uncomfortable touching things they could not see, and tactile memory varied a great deal between testers. The testers generally found it harder to remember placement in the tactile memory game than in regular memory - they knew they had felt the same material before, they just didn't know where. They recognized pairs, but had a harder time identifying the material. The game became more engaging when people were competing against each other, and when they did, they never mentioned what they felt. A big difference from when people were trying the game by them selves and being very vocal and describing what they felt in every single compartment.

This project was first and foremost an experimental project - we wanted to test people's tactile memory. But the result also has commercial potential - it could be a game both for blind children and seeing children, or for blind and seeing children to play together. Also, loose containers would make it easy to change the contents so it could be a new game every time.