Abstract
The ability to travel independently is crucial to an individual’s quality of life but compromised by visual impairment. Several navigational aids have been developed for blind people to address this limitation. These devices typically employ auditory instructions to guide users to desired waypoints. Unfortunately, auditory instructions may interfere with users’ awareness of environmental sounds that signal dangers or provide cues for spatial orientation. Accordingly, there is a need to explore the use of non-auditory modalities to convey information for safe and independent travel. Here, we explored the efficacy of a tactile navigational aid that provides turn signals via vibrations on a hip-worn belt. We compared the performance of 12 blind participants as they navigated a series of paths under the direction of the tactile belt or conventional auditory turn commands; furthermore, we assessed the effect of repeated testing, both in the presence and absence of simulated street sounds. A computer-controlled system triggered each turn command, measured participants’ time-to-path-completion, and detected major navigational errors. When participants navigated in a silent environment, they performed somewhat worse with the tactile belt than the auditory device, taking longer to complete each trial and committing more errors. When participants navigated in the presence of simulated street noises, the difference in completion time between auditory and tactile navigation diminished. These results suggest that tactile navigation holds promise as an effective method in everyday environments characterized by ambient noise such as street sounds.
Highlights
In order to navigate safely and efficiently, blind individuals attend to nonvisual environmental stimuli, such as street sounds, while making use of mobility aids
Exclusion criteria ensured that blind participants did not have impairments known to affect tactile sensation, that blindness was of peripheral origin, that the participants’ degree of vision did not exceed residual light perception, and that no participant had diabetes, hearing problems, balance difficulties, tremor, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, stroke, neurological disorders, learning disabilities, dyslexia, attention deficit disorders or cognitive impairments
AQ, 5 Trials: Time and error AS, 5 Trials: Time and error, comprehension. They had the opportunity to become familiar with the tactile belt and auditory device and the foam mats that made up the paths and to gain a basic understanding of the navigational task
Summary
In order to navigate safely and efficiently, blind individuals attend to nonvisual environmental stimuli, such as street sounds, while making use of mobility aids. The skin has a large available surface area; the point-to-point mapping from the skin to the somatosensory homunculus naturally conveys spatial information (Nakamura et al, 1998); and vibrations applied in sequence to adjacent skin locations can be accurately interpreted as directional information (Raj et al, 1998; Chiasson et al, 2002; Cholewiak et al, 2004; Van Erp et al, 2005; Jones and Ray, 2008; Barber et al, 2015) In light of these promising characteristics, tactile-directed navigation has been a focus of research and development for many years (Bach-y-Rita, 1967; Ertan et al, 1998; Tsukada and Yasumura, 2004; Van Erp et al, 2005; Johnson and Higgins, 2006; Gustafson-Pearce et al, 2007; Pielot and Boll, 2010; Flores et al, 2015; Jimenez and Jimenez, 2017). The study’s results, while intriguing, corresponded only partially to these predictions
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
