Audio & Tactile Access…

Leader: University of Macedonia

Project Coordinator: Prof. Konstantinos Papadopoulos

Partners:

1. University of Thessaly, Department Special Education
2. National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Department of Informatics and Telecommunications.
3. National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Department of Medicine

Audio and Tactile Access to Knowledge for Individuals with Visual Impairments

The purpose of the research project was to study the access of people with visual disabilities to knowledge through the senses of hearing & touch.

Project Goals

1. Investigation of the contribution of audio-tactile information in the creation of mental maps by people with blindness, as well as the study of the contribution of audio-tactile information to the Orientation & Mobility of blind individuals.
2. Study of acoustic performance perception of the visual elements at the logical level and typographic level.
3. Comparative study of rendering simple & complex mathematical expressions through hearing, touch & audio0tactile (combined) representation in terms of correctness accuracy, recall accuracy & recognition accuracy.
4. Development of extended active touch mapping and search for correlations with levels of understanding.
5. Use of psycho-physiological signals of electro-encephalogram, brain-induced dynamics & electro-myograms of the face for the understanding of the perception of the prosodic characteristics of speech by people with visual disabilities.

Tasks

1. Creation of cognitive maps by people with visual disabilities through audio-tactile information.
2. Contribution of audio-tactile information to the orientation and mobility of people with visual impairments.
3. Detection and Mapping of types of active touch of people with visual disabilities when recognizing geometric shapes.
4. Audio access of visually impaired people to the visual characteristics of documents.
5. Analysis of psychophysiological signals of the blind during the perception of prosody.
6. Access of mathematical expressions to people with visual disabilities through hearing and touch.
7. Finding reliability through the review of the types of active touch of people with visual disabilities when recognizing geometric shapes
8. Experimental design (A-B-A) for the application of active touch items in real conditions (classroom).