Abstract
Deaf and hearing-impaired people need special educational and developmental tools to support their social inclusion. Research in vibro-tactile pattern perception has shown that tactile memory could be a crucial aspect in coding and imaging semantic information for users with sensory limitations. This paper describes a simple matching game designed to facilitate the learning process of 27 vibro-tactile composite patterns (tactons) which can be produced with the Logitech tactile feedback mouse. The underlying assumption was that a particular framework and game intrigue would induce a player to mobilize the perceptive skills and deploy individual playing tactics to recall the tactons when progressing through the game. The performance of ten subjects using soundproof headphones was investigated in terms of the number of repetitions required to memorize and learn the mono-frequency, bi-frequency and three-frequency tactons, and in terms of the selection time needed to match the tactons in the game script. The analysis of the data collected indicated that the novice-to-expert transition was significantly above chance when the results obtained in the first and the last test sessions were statistically analyzed and compared. There was also a significant difference between mean selection times needed to match the composite patterns depending of their complexity in the first and the last test sessions. Upon learning and training within game, the tactons may be employed to assign alphabet characters or symbols to communicate textual or symbolic information.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Antonets VA, Zeveke AV, Malysheva GI Possibility of the synthesis of the additional sensory channel in the human–machine system. Sensory Systems 6(4):100–102
Arnold P, Leadley J (1999) Tactile memory of deaf-blind participants on four tasks. Deafness Educ Int 1:106–111
Asamura N, Tomori N, Shinoda H (1998) A tactile feeling display based on selective stimulation to skin receptors. In: Proceedings of IEEE VRAIS 98. IEEE CS press, Los Alamitos, pp 36–42
Behrmann M, Ewell C (2003) Expertise in tactile pattern recognition. Psychol Sci 14(5):480–486
Bothe HH, Mohamad AF, Jensen MR (2004) FLIIPS: finger stimulation for improved speechreading. In: Miezenberger K et al (eds) ICCHP2004, LCNS 3118. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg New York, pp 1152–1159
Brewster S, Brown LM (2004) Tactons: structured tactile messages for non-visual information display. In: Cockburn A (ed) Proceedings of fifth Australasian user interface conference (AUIC2004), Dunedin, New Zealand, CRPIT 28, ACS, pp 15–23
Conway C, Christiansen MH (2002) Sequential learning through touch, vision and audition. In: Proceedings of the 24th annual conference of the cognitive science society. Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, pp 220–225
Chang A, O’Modhrain S, Jacob R, Gunther E, Ishii H (2002) ComTouch: design of a vibrotactile communication device. In: Proceedings of DIS02. ACM, Toronto, pp 312–320
Enriquez MJ (2002) A study of haptic icons. MSc thesis, Department of Computer Science, University of British Columbia, Web site (2005) http://www.cs.ubc.ca/∼enriquez/Enriquez_Thesis_Final.pdf
Evreinov G, Evreinova T, Raisamo R (2004) Mobile games for training tactile perception. In: Matthias Rauterberg (ed) Entertainment computing—ICEC 2004, 3rd international conference, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, September 1–3, 2004. Proceedings, LNCS 3166. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg New York, ISBN 3-540-22947-7, pp 468–475
Fukumoto M, Sugimura T (2001) Active click: tactile feedback for touch panels. In: Proceedings of CHI 2001, interactive posters. ACM, Toronto, pp 121–122
Gault RH (1927) Hearing through the sense organs of touch and vibration. J Franklin Inst 204:329–358
Geldard FA (1957) Adventures in tactile literacy. Am Psychol 12:115–124
Hear-it, Web site (2005) http://www.hear-it.org/index.dsp
Immersion Studio 4.0.3 software, Web site (2005), http://www.immersion.com
Kontarinis DA, Howe RD (1995) Tactile display of vibratory information in tele-operation and virtual environments. Presence 4(4):387–402
Levänen S, Hamdorf D (2001) Feeling vibrations: enhanced tactile sensitivity in congenitally deaf humans. Neurosci Lett 301(1):75–77
Levänen S, Jousmäki V, Hari R (1998) Vibration-induced auditory-cortex activation in a congenitally deaf adult. Curr Biol 8:869–872
Lee J, Dietz P, Leigh D, Yerazunis W, Hudson S (2004) Haptic pen: a tactile feedback stylus for touch screens. In: CHI letters, proceedings of the ACM symposium on user interface software and technology
Nashel A, Razzaque S (2003) Tactile virtual buttons for mobile devices. In: Proceedings of CHI 2003. ACM, Toronto, pp 854–855
Poupyrev I, Maruyama S, Rekimoto J (2002) Ambient touch: designing tactile interfaces for handheld devices. In: Proceedings of UIST 2002. ACM, Toronto, pp 51–60
Rönnberg J (1995) Perceptual compensation in the deaf and blind: myth or reality? In: Dixon RA, Bäckman L (eds) Compensating for psychological deficits and declines: managing losses and promoting gains. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, pp 251–274
Rutter D (2005) Logitch iFeel mouses. Survey. Last update of website on 10.02.2005 [http://www.dansdata.com/ifeel.htm]
Sharmin S, Evreinov G, Raisamo R (2005) Non-visual feedback cues for pen computing. In: Proceedings of the first joint Eurohaptics conference and symposium on haptic interfaces for virtual environment and teleoperator systems, WordHaptics, WHC 2005, Pisa, Italy, March 18–20 2005. IEEE Inc., pp 625–628
Sharp EY (1972) Relationship of visual closure to speechreading. Except Child 38:729–734
Shimoga KB (1993) A survey of perceptual feedback issues in dexterous telemanipulation: Part II. Finger touch feedback. In: Proceedings of IEEE annual virtual reality international symposium, Seattle, Washington, September 18–22, pp 271–279
Spengler F, Roberts TPL, Poeppel D, Byl N, Wang X, Rowley HA, Merzenich MM (1997) Learning transfer and neuronal plasticity in humans trained in tactile discrimination. Neurosci Lett 323:151–154
Tan HZ (1996) Information transmission with a multi-finger tactual display. PhD dissertation, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Acknowledgements
This work was financially supported by the Academy of Finland (grants 200761, 107278, and 105555), the Graduate School in User-Centered Information Technology (UCIT), and the project “Multimodal Collaboration Environment for Inclusion of Visually Impaired Children” funded by the EU Commission, IST-2003-511592. We would like to thank the volunteer test subjects who took part in our test.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Evreinova, T.G., Evreinov, G. & Raisamo, R. An alternative approach to strengthening tactile memory for sensory disabled people. Univ Access Inf Soc 5, 189–198 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-006-0030-3
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-006-0030-3