Perceiving graphical and pictorial information via touch and hearing

With the ever increasing availability of the Internet and electronic media rich in graphical and pictorial information – for communication, commerce, entertainment, art, education – it has been hard for the visually impaired community to keep up. We propose a non-invasive system that can be used to convey graphical and pictorial information via touch and hearing. The main idea is that the user actively explores a twodimensional layout consisting of one or more objects on a touch screen with the nger while listening to auditory feedback. We have demonstrated the ef cacy of the proposed approach in a range of tasks, from basic shape identi cation to perceiving a scene with several objects. The proposed approach is also expected to contribute to research in virtual reality, immersive environments, and medicine.

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2011
• Where: ICASSP
• Authors: Pubudu Madhawa Silva, Thrasyvoulos N. Pappas, Joshua Atkins, James E. West
• Keywords: ICASSP 2011, Pictorial Information, Shape Identi Cation, Signal Processing, Visually Impaired