Abstract
The successful development of a system realizing color sonification would enable auditory representation of the visual environment. The primary beneficiary of such a system would be people that cannot directly access visual information—the visually impaired community. Despite the plethora of sensory substitution devices, developing systems that provide intuitive color sonification remains a challenge. This paper presents design considerations, development, and the usability audit of a sensory substitution device that converts spatial color information into soundscapes. The implemented wearable system uses a dedicated color space and continuously generates natural, spatialized sounds based on the information acquired from a camera. We developed two head-mounted prototype devices and two graphical user interface (GUI) versions. The first GUI is dedicated to researchers, and the second has been designed to be easily accessible for visually impaired persons. Finally, we ran fundamental usability tests to evaluate the new spatial color sonification algorithm and to compare the two prototypes. Furthermore, we propose recommendations for the development of the next iteration of the system.
Highlights
Portantly, the UX specialist has never had contact with the device before, whereas the two the UX specialist has never had contact with the device before, whereas the two other other experts were experienced in sensory substitution research
We aimed to compare experts were experienced in sensory substitution research
We aimed to compare the the two prototypes, assess the intuitiveness of the color-to-sound mapping, analyze diftwo prototypes, assess the intuitiveness of the color-to-sound mapping, analyze differferences in the two sonification area modes, track sensorimoences in the two sonification area modes, track sensorimotor tor contingencies (i.e., the regularities in how sensory stimulation depends on the activity contingencies required by the device, and evaluate the system usability to of the perceiver/user [70]) required by the device, and evaluate the system usability to solve everydaysolve life tasks (i.e., natural object color identification, and reaching, and everyday life tasks (i.e.,recognition, natural object recognition, colorreaching, identification, locomotion)
Summary
There is still no SSD that has been widely accepted broadly by the blind community [3,4,5] It contrasts with the recent research results that indicate significant potential for SSDs for non-invasive rehabilitation of the visually impaired [4,6,7] stemming from brain plasticity. The neuroplastic changes are not restricted to a critical period of brain development and can occur in adults. This suggests that with proper training, interpretation of the translated sensory information may become intuitive and effortless over time, and a new quality of perceptual experience might be developed [11].
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