1. Tactile discrimination of a set of Braille letters in sighted individuals: is it susceptible to interference by practice on a different set of letters? Eisawy, M 1 Dorfberger, S 1,2 & Karni, A 1 1 University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel. 2 Gordon College of Education, Haifa, Israel.

3. Methods 26 students were randomly assigned into three experimental groups (Short or Long-training and learning with Interference) for discrimination training, blindfolded, with sets of standard Braille letter-pairs. Participants were trained on Day 1 and retested 24-hours later. Participants were asked to report whether the target stimuli were identical or different from each other.

4. Results There were significant within-session gains in speed and accuracy in all three groups.

6. Conclusion The nature of the specific Braille letters used in training is of secondary importance in initial phases of training – participants continue to improve even when letter-pairs are changed midway in the training experience.

7. Conclusion It is proposed that in the early sessions, participants learn general perceptual-motor task and stimulus aspects, shared by all Braille letters. These results may contribute to the design of effective training protocols for Braille reading.