Translated from French (and updated) from: Y. Hatwell, A. Streri and E. Gentaz (2000). Toucher pour connaître. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

1. Introduction : touch and cognition / Yvette Hatwell -- 2. General characteristics of the anatomical and functional organization of cutaneous and haptic perceptions / Edouard Gentaz -- 3. Anatomical and functional organization of cutaneous and haptic perceptions : the contribution of neuropsychology and cerebral functional imagery / Edouard Gentaz and Maryse Badan -- 4. Manual exploration and haptic perception in infants / Arlette Streri -- 5. Manual exploratory procedures in children and adults / Yvette Hatwell -- 6. Handedness and manual exploration / Arlette Streri -- 7. The haptic identification of everyday life objects / Roberta Klatzky and Susan Lederman -- 8. Haptic processing of spatial and material object properties / Edouard Gentaz and Yvette Hatwell -- 9. Haptic perceptual illusions / Morton A. Heller -- 10. Congenitally blindness and spatial mental imagery / Cesare Cornoldi, Maria-Chiara Fastame and Tomaso Vecchi -- 11. Intermodal relations in infancy / Arlette Streri -- 12. Intermodal coordinations in children and adults / Yvette Hatwell -- 13. Tactile exploration in nonhuman primates / Agnès Lacreuse and Dorothy M. Fragaszy -- 14. Braille : issues on structure, teaching and assessment / Michael J. Tobin, John Greaney and Eileen Hill -- 15. The tactile reading of maps and drawings, and the access of blind people to works of art / Yvette Hatwell and Françoise Martinez-Sarrochi -- 16. Sensory substitution : limits and perspectives / Charles Lenay, Olivier Gapenne, Sylvain Hanneton, Catherine Marque and Christelle Genouëlle -- 17. New technologies empowering visually impaired people for accessing documents / Dominique Burger.

"The dominance of vision is so strong in sighted people that touch is sometimes considered as a minor perceptual modality. However, touch is a powerful tool which contributes significantly to our knowledge on space and objects. Its intensive use by blind people allows them to reach the same levels of knowledge and cognition as their sighted peers. In this book, specialized researchers present the recent state of knowledge about the cognitive functioning of touch. After an analysis of the neurophysiology and neuropsychology of touch, exploratory manual behaviours, intramodal haptic (tactual-kinesthetic) abilities and cross-modal visual-tactual coordination are examined in infants, children and adults, and in non-human primates. These studies concern both sighted and blind persons in order to know whether early visual deprivation modifies the modes of processing space and objects. The last section is devoted to the technical devices favouring the school and social integration of the young blind: Braille reading, use of raised maps and drawings, "sensory substitution" displays, and new technologies of communication adapted for the blind." -- Cover.