A few other thoughts:
1) After re-reading Lenay and Steiner, I think it might be an error to have more than one actuator on the hand. I.e., it it’s probably wrong to pursue a model in which objects are colour coded, with different stimulators on the body responding to different colour lights. The issue is that with JUST ONE stimulator on the body, all you have is A POINT source, and a good argument that space is created by movement. If you have more than one point, this invites a representationalist interpretation, since the stimuli on the body start looking like a space of points.
2) Indeed, it would be a really powerful and impressive experiment, if a participant could discern the identity of multiple objects, i.e., discern that there ARE multiple objects, just using one point stimulus, and movement. That would be really wild.
I imagine us having a protocol in which some participants habituate to the single object setup, and some are naïve. Both go into a multiple object setup with the following variations: a) body is stationary; b) body can locomote, freely; c) body can locomote, with room constraints. I am betting b will be important to discerning multiple objects, and c might facilitate, or facilitiate remembering where things are.
We can then move from the above setup to a multi room setup, and test for memory and room-effects. But, in any case, the above setup will GIVE US A LENS INTO THE BODY-MOVEMENT-ROOM-THING nexus, that is, really let us see how movement and habit, etc., are involved in this domain of memory-place-identity.
3) It now strikes me that my own book, The Sense of Space, in particular the chapter on depth perception, will be a resource too. For Lenay and Steiner, I think, give confirmation of my concept of ‘envelopes’ of movement, constrained by the body schema, being crucial to perception. It now seems to me that what we are probing is the relation between inner and outer envelopes of movement in perception (inner envelopes are here movements of the body in relation to thing, and outer envelopes are locomotory movements of the body as limited by the room).
4) Rooms as joints: I wonder if there is something deep here. I also wonder why in English we call certain places “joints.” I.e., Marlow walks into the joint and asks the bar tender something. Could it be that English has a leg up here on German re. philosophical insights?
David