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The injured German veteran was a former miner, twenty-four years old, who had been wounded by shrapnel in the back of the head.

This resulted in damage to the occipital lobe and very probably to the left side of the cerebellum also.

In any event, the extraordinary result of this injury was that he became `` psychically blind '', while at the same time, apparently, the sense of touch remained essentially intact.

Psychical blindness is a condition in which there is a total absence of visual memory-images, a condition in which, for example, one is unable to remember something just seen or to conjure up a memory-picture of the visible appearance of a well-known friend in his absence.

This circumstance in the patient's case plus the fact that his tactual capacity remained basically in sound working order constitutes its exceptional value for the problem at hand since the evidence presented by the authors is overwhelming that, when the patient closed his eyes, he had absolutely no spatial ( that is, third-dimensional ) awareness whatsoever.

The necessary inference, as the authors themselves interpret it, would seem to be this: `` ( ( 1 ) Spatial qualities are not among those grasped by the sense of touch, as such.

We do not arrive at spatial images by means of the sense of touch by itself.

( 2 ) Spatiality becomes part of the tactual sensation only by way of visual representations ; ;

that is, there is, in the true sense, only a visual space ''.

The underlying assumption, of course, is that only sight and touch enable us, in any precise and fully dependable way, to locate objects in space beyond us, the other senses being decidedly inferior, if not totally inadequate, in this regard.

This is an assumption with which few would be disposed to quarrel.

Therefore, if the sense of touch is functioning normally and there is a complete absence of spatial awareness in a psychically-blind person when the eyes are closed and an object is handled, the conclusion seems unavoidable that touch by itself cannot focus and take possession of the third-dimensionality of things and that actual sight or visual representations are necessary.