Investigation of Property of Tactile Sense in Communication for the Deaf Blind and Its Application for Assistive Technology

(1)聋盲人日常生活辅助技术的研究与开发我们研制了一种聋盲人可以理解其声环境的装置。麦克风输入的声音转换成振荡信号后输出到安装在失聪盲人身上的振动器。我们进行了一项实验，一名使用这种设备的聋盲人通过翻译与另一人交谈。因此，据观察，由于该系统的使用，通信进程发生了变化。来自系统的振动可能会给失聪盲人带来一些脑力劳动，但他们可以逐渐学会与之交谈的方式。(2)无翻译交流辅助技术我们重点研究了盲人手指盲文作为一种实时交互的交流方式，在速度和准确性上与语音大致相当。首先，为了实现对互联网(电子邮件和WWW)的访问，我们使用手指盲文为聋人开发了一个WWW浏览器和一个文本编辑器。第二，我们开发了一个会议系统，允许聋盲人参与社会交流。该系统可以控制与会者的轮流，以便让聋盲人有机会加入会议。

(1) Research and Development of Assistive Technology for Daily Life of the deaf blindWe developed a device where a deaf blind person could understand his/her acoustic environments. The sound input from a microphone translated into oscillation signal and then output to the vibrator which is attached with the deaf blind person. We performed the experiment where a deaf blind person with this device talked to another person via interpreter. As a result, it was observed that the processes of communication were changed due to use of the system. Vibration from the system may give some mental work-load to the deaf blind person at the beginning, however, they could gradually learn the way of conversation involving it.(2) Assistive Technology for communication without human translatorWe focused on the Finger Braille as a real-time interactive communication method for the deaf blind people, which is approximately equivalent to speech in terms of speed and accuracy. First, we developed a WWW browser and a text editor for the deaf blind using Finger Braille in order to realize the accessibility to the Internet (e-mail and WWW). Second, we developed a conference system which allowed a deaf blind person to participate in a social communication. The system can control the turn of participants in order to give a deaf blind person a chance of joining to the conference.