Hungry Cat—A Serious Game for Conveying Spatial Information to the Visually Impaired

Carmen Chai,Bee Lau,Zheng Pan

doi:10.3390/mti3010012

Abstract

Navigation is done through obtaining spatial information from the environment and forming a spatial map about it. The visually impaired rely mainly on orientation and mobility training by a certified specialist to acquire spatial navigation skills. However, it is manpower intensive and costly. This research designed and developed a serious game, Hungry Cat. This game can convey spatial information of virtual rooms to children with visual impairment through game playing. An evaluation with 30 visually impaired participants was conducted by allowing them to explore each virtual room in Hungry Cat. After exploration, the food finding test, which is a game mode available in Hungry Cat, was conducted, followed by the physical wire net test to evaluate their ability in forming the spatial mental maps of the virtual rooms. The positive results of the evaluation obtained demonstrate the ability of Hungry Cat, in conveying spatial information about virtual rooms and aiding the development of spatial mental maps of these rooms through game playing.

Highlights

It is without a doubt that spatial information plays an important role in day to day life
First is the landmark-based navigation, which employs the information provided by environmental landmarks in the form of vision, audio, smell and tactile stimuli along with an internal cognitive map of the place to navigate
The participants of this study consisted of multiple groups: primary and secondary school students, low vision and with no vision, as well as students with learning difficulties and students who do not

Summary

Introduction

It is without a doubt that spatial information plays an important role in day to day life. As one navigates through an environment, information about the environment is obtained from multiple sources. The information obtained includes general knowledge about the place, written or verbal descriptions of the environment, visual experience, personal experiences of being in the environment and others. All of these come together to create a spatial mental map of that place in the person’s mind [1]. First is the landmark-based navigation, which employs the information provided by environmental landmarks in the form of vision, audio, smell and tactile stimuli along with an internal cognitive map of the place to navigate. The second method is the path integration method, which is the common and preferred method of visually impaired individuals

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Results