An alternative approach to strengthening tactile memory for sensory disabled people

Abstract

Deaf and hearing-impaired people need special educational and developmental tools to support their social inclusion. Research in vibro-tactile pattern perception has shown that tactile memory could be a crucial aspect in coding and imaging semantic information for users with sensory limitations. This paper describes a simple matching game designed to facilitate the learning process of 27 vibro-tactile composite patterns (tactons) which can be produced with the Logitech tactile feedback mouse. The underlying assumption was that a particular framework and game intrigue would induce a player to mobilize the perceptive skills and deploy individual playing tactics to recall the tactons when progressing through the game. The performance of ten subjects using soundproof headphones was investigated in terms of the number of repetitions required to memorize and learn the mono-frequency, bi-frequency and three-frequency tactons, and in terms of the selection time needed to match the tactons in the game script. The analysis of the data collected indicated that the novice-to-expert transition was significantly above chance when the results obtained in the first and the last test sessions were statistically analyzed and compared. There was also a significant difference between mean selection times needed to match the composite patterns depending of their complexity in the first and the last test sessions. Upon learning and training within game, the tactons may be employed to assign alphabet characters or symbols to communicate textual or symbolic information.