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Evaluation of the Robot Assisted Sign Language Tutoring Using Video-Based Studies

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Abstract

The results are from an on-going study which aims to assist in the teaching of Sign Language (SL) to hearing impaired children by means of non-verbal communication and imitation based interaction games between a humanoid robot and the child. In this study, the robot will be able to express a word in the SL among a set of chosen words using hand movements, body and face gestures and having comprehended the word, the child will give relevant feedback to the robot.

This paper reports the findings of such an evaluation on a subset of sample words chosen from Turkish Sign Language (TSL) via the comparison of their video representations carried out by human teachers and the Nao H25 robot. Within this study, several surveys and user studies have been realized to reveal the resemblance between the two types of videos involving the performance of the robot simulator and the human teacher for each chosen word. In order to investigate the perceived level of similarity between human and robot behavior, participants with different sign language acquaintance levels and age groups have been asked to evaluate the videos using paper based and online questionnaires. The results of these surveys have been summarized and the most significant factors affecting the comprehension of TSL words have been discussed.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Istanbul Technical University Scientific Research Projects foundation under the contract BAP 34255. The analysis of data was partly supported by the EU Integrated Project LIREC (LIving with Robots and intEractive Companions), funded by the European Commission FP7-ICT under contract FP7-215554.

Special thanks to sign language teacher Feride Korkmaz, Prof. Dr. Sumru Ozsoy, and Prof. Dr. Lale Akarun for their guidance. We are also thankful to our participants for their patience and wonderful collaboration.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Computer and Informatics, Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Hatice Kose, Rabia Yorganci & Esra H. Algan

  2. University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, UK

    Dag S. Syrdal

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  1. Hatice Kose
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  2. Rabia Yorganci
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  3. Esra H. Algan
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  4. Dag S. Syrdal
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Correspondence to Hatice Kose.

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Kose, H., Yorganci, R., Algan, E.H. et al. Evaluation of the Robot Assisted Sign Language Tutoring Using Video-Based Studies. Int J of Soc Robotics 4, 273–283 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-012-0142-2

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