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Recent studies have suggested that visual experience in childhood is crucial for the automatic activation of an external spatial reference frame in tactile perception. These findings are largely based on behavioural work, with limited exploration using event‐related potentials (ERPs). The present study examined the role of external spatial frameworks on tactile perception by recording ERP correlates of both preparatory processes and somatosensory processing during a tactile attention task for a group of early blind participants and age‐matched sighted controls who carried out the task in darkness. Participants had to shift attention to one hand or the other as indicated by an auditory cue presented at the start of each trial, in order to detect infrequent tactile targets delivered to the attended hand. Spatial information about the external environment was acquired in advance during tactile exploration of the testing booth …