Identification of novel words and sentences using a tactile vocoder

Abstract

The present experiments are part of an ongoing evaluation of a tactile vocoder that has been developed at Queen's University. The subject used in the experiments has normal hearing and had previously acquired a tactual vocabulary of 250 words. In all experiments the subject and reader sat in adjacent soundproof booths with a window providing visual contact when necessary. The first series of experiments examined the subject's ability to identify words that the subject had not received tactual experience with before. The subject was not aware of the possible words that might occur and a given word was only tested once. In the lipreading alone (LA) condition 39% of the words were identified correctly compared to 69% correct in the lipreading plus tactile vocoder (LV) condition. The ability of the subject to identify novel words with the tactile vocoder alone (VA) was surprising and encouraging. These results will be discussed in detail. Experiments testing the subject's ability to recognize open set sentences showed an increase in correct identification of over 100% when the LV condition was compared to the LA condition.