I’m Mathias Alberton, your host and a sport psychology MSc researcher with a deep passion for exploring how we can break barriers and build confidence for visually impaired and blind individuals. In this series, we’ll be unpacking my research on the existential nature of touch exchange—how touch becomes a bridge to confidence and participation in physical activities. Together, we’ll uncover the themes, stories, and practical applications of this work. Whether you’re a blind or visually impaired person navigating a world designed for the sighted, a researcher, a student, or simply someone curious about the human experience, this podcast is for you.
Hello everyone. My name is Mathias Alberton. I am a trainee sport psychologist with a MSc in Applied Sport Psychology at St. Mary University, Twickenham in London. And I welcome you here on Martial Attitude Voice Podcast to dwell into the world of pop psychology, my also inclusion and transformative power of touch as a guest and as a researcher with a passion for exploring how we can break barriers and build confidence for visually impaired and blind individuals. In this series, I really wanted to unpack the research that I've done on the existential nature of touch exchange and to try to create a bridge between what is research and how research can be let's say more accessible to a wider public, which is often not the case, not only because research is in journals that you have to find, you have to pay for, but because of the language of the research is always very, I don't want to say cryptic, but difficult. So I wanted to try through the podcast to see if it was possible to break it down a bit and to make it more accessible.
Of course, whether you are a blind or visually impaired person navigating the world that is designed for decided, or a researcher, a student, or simply someone curious about the human experience, this podcast series might be for you. Of course, this research has been a journey and it stemmed from my own experiences working with visually impaired individuals throughout my community interest company, Martial Attitude C.I.C. And let's say my academic journey in sports psychology has been, let's say, the foundation of this work, but also a wild journey into knowing new things, new concepts, and to try to apply the best practices of sports psychology and psychology at large to working with a certain population. The thing is, how do you write research, but how do you structure it?
What I want to convey here is that the insights gained through this work reveal how much touch, not just the physical sensation, let's say, touching the table, as a means of connecting with the world, with others, how touch is important to us. So let me share the key ideas of the study with you. The research aimed to explore how touch exchange, or TE, in short, influence, confidence, and participation in physical activity among visually impaired and blind people. So by listening their stories, the stories of seven participants, I under covered themes that speak of the power of touch. So this is a qualitative study in nature, meaning that instead of going for statistics, data sets, compromising answers to questionnaires, for instance. We do have interviews, semi-structured interviews, and we analyze them with a certain methodology that we will investigate later, and we draw some conclusion. In this case, we are talking about themes, so overarching themes. Let's say grouping of meaning that you can see have substantiated that the old discourse, the old experience of the research. Therefore, we're talking about the existential need to touch the world to make it real. We see a theme stating the importance of the right context for meaningful connections. Also, we see how touch can incrementally build confidence.
And last but not least, the way sport and touch help overcome isolation and foster resilience. In this series of podcasts, I want to use as much as possible, not a lay language, but let's say a simpler language, rather than the academic structured very organized and formalized language of the paper. And of course, as a reference, you can always find the paper in the documents on my link tree or on the website. So feel free to look at it.
So we have four themes and we will explore these themes together in the coming episodes, breaking them down into relatable stories. So insights from literature and hopefully practical takeaways. So why the podcast? The accessibility really matters. The research is available through written publications, social media. Audio can reach wider audience if it is pulled out through these medias. It's a format also the podcast that resonates with the population of subjects of this research, so for visually impaired community where text-based barriers might exist in some cases, but also it's engaging for everyone interested in learning about sports, psychology, inclusion.
So what can we expect from now on? Each episode will focus on a specific part of the research. I read excerpts from interviews, provide the context on how these findings apply to real life scenarios. For instance, did you know that two participants from completely different cultural backgrounds describe very similar societal barriers to touch and inclusion?
So this, for instance, is a moment where we can dive into shared experience and to understand what they mean for designing inclusive spaces and programs of training. So before we wrap for today, I think it's quite important, for instance, to start with the first part of any scientific research paper, which is the abstract. So a research paper consists normally at least in four sections. The abstract, which is, let's say, an introduction of all of it. But the first sections are the introduction, the method, the results, the discussion. Following there will be appendices in which you can find questionnaire, material use, other materials, the transcript of the interviews, for instance, for this piece of research. But research is always, let's say, encapsulated in an abstract. The abstract, which normally is something like 200, 250 words, is as well, yes, a summary of everything given possibly the same amount of space for each one of the four sections I mentioned before, but also as well is very technical, or could be very technical, according to the study. What I want to try here is to translate the abstract as well. So for instance, I could provide a very strict summary of it, like, you know...
Touch exchange, TE, is more than a physical act. For visually impaired individuals, it's a bridge to confidence, well-being, acting participation in life. My research using semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis explored how touch can transform challenges into opportunities. And we discovered that the right kind of touch, whether through sport, training or everyday interaction, can empower individuals, helping them build resilience and find joy in movement and connection. So this is, for instance, a very little summary of the abstract.
Otherwise, I could try to make it as long, let's say, as the usual abstract, which I think could be a good idea to write it down in the description of the episode below, so you can find it immediately. But let's find another way to talk about the abstract. So using a simplified language trying to convey the same things. We could say: Visually impaired and blind people often face challenges in sensing the body position in space, which can negatively affect their daily lives. Combined with societal and structural barriers, these challenges lead to low participation in physical activities, activities that are known to boost confidence, social connections, and overall mental and physical well-being. So feeling confident about touching others and being touched, known as touch exchange by me, introduces touch exchange by me, plays a key role, I think, in sports and exercise. For visually impaired individuals, it can be particularly important in building confidence in social situations and fostering a sense of self-belief.
The study explored the experience of seven visually impaired adults, five men, two women, averaging 41 years old, with one partially sighted and six completely blind, through in-depth interviews. It identified four themes, so the idea that things do not exist unless they have been touched, reflecting the needs of touch or perceive the word, and the importance of context, where touch can deepen human connections when done in a safe and respectful environment, and how touch exchange helps individuals gradually build confidence over time, but provides as well an emotional escape, let's say, for challenging mental states, or a coping mechanism, if you wish. The study suggested that touch exchange could be a thing, could be a skill that can be developed and it can be important for important interaction, overall psychological and physical well-being. So if these findings are confirmed, the suggestion is that we might be needing new tools such as a proper questionnaire to measure confidence in touch exchange. And so having the possibility to have more tailored psychological and physical activity program for visually impaired individuals in the future. So for instance, this is just the beginning. I wanted to try this. And I hope you will follow me in the following episodes to dive into the background of touch and confidence, why touch matters, how it's understood by visual impaired, and the psychological theories that frame these experiences. So I want to thank you to join me today. And if you like to learn more about touch exchange or activity with visual impaired or you are going through your research project right now as a student, for instance, or if you're a researcher or you're working in the environment of supporting people with disability in sports and you want to share your thought, you can connect with me through my channels. So you can link to the website. And so.
It will be a pleasure to connect with you. I usually say every time, you keep in touch.