"Like a light through the keyhole": The categorization of perceptual concepts and visual impairment

• Grant number: 24/07266-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: August 01, 2024
• End date: July 31, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics
• Principal Investigator: Maria Célia Pereira Lima Hernandes
• Grantee: Kauã Machado dos Santos
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Categorization is defined as a cognitive process that organizes elements of the world through categories based on a network of familiar resemblance dictated by human senses (Taylor, 2003). These categories, related through semantic criteria, structure meaning for the items that comprise knowledge. As demonstrated by Bedny et al. (2019), light emission verbs are categorized by both sighted and congenitally blind individuals, with no significant difference in semantic similarity between the concepts of the two groups. Some questions linger from the accumulated knowledge to date: have the perceptual experiences of different groups, despite similar results, created distinct criteria for categorizing a particular element? And would the residue of visual memory, present in the low vision group, be a determining factor in finding distinct results when compared to other groups? These are questions for which we seek answers in this research.