BASIC AND APPLIED STUDIES OF TACTILE PERCEPTION

触觉辅助器为人类提供语音信息的潜力研究 到目前为止，听障人士主要关注的是这些 设备确实产生了可衡量的语音感知益处，而且 不同种类的触觉辅助器提供的相对好处。是这样的 研究虽然重要，但并不涉及更根本的问题 关于影响经济增长的刺激的具体方面 通过触觉辅助呈现的语音的可识别性。 对类似刺激的触觉加工能力的研究 通过触觉辅助呈现是确定刺激方面所必需的 这会带来更大的可识别性。更紧密地耦合基本的 对触觉辅助应用的处理考虑有希望 促进我们对这两个领域的理解。 本提案调查的主要领域涉及 决定语音刺激的可识别性的刺激方面 通过触觉显示器呈现。一系列实验检验了变异 在刺激位置、刺激运动的方向和程度上，感知 强度和时间线索，包括单独和组合，以 在呈现的刺激的可区分性中确定它们的相对显著程度 通过触觉辅助。量化每个刺激因素的贡献的模型 维度将被构建和评估。一套不同的 实验通过关联物理输出来解决同样的问题 对于相同的刺激，具有知觉混淆的触觉显示 调查触觉语音刺激的物理方面，这些刺激有助于 可识别性。最后，通过以下方式解决设备专用性问题 比较不同触觉数组在任务子集上的性能 如上所述。总体而言，拟议的实验结果应该 加强。我们对复杂刺激的触觉处理的理解，如 作为通过触觉语音辅助工具呈现的内容，并且还应提供 用于改善显示语音信息的设计的指南 触觉教具。

Studies of the potential of tactile aids to provide speech information to hearing-impaired persons have to date focused primarily on whether these devices do indeed produce measurable speech perception benefits, and on the relative benefits provided by different kinds of tactile aids. Such studies, while important, do not address more fundamental questions regarding the specific aspects of the stimulus that influence the identifiability of speech sounds presented via tactile aids. Investigations of tactile processing capabilities for stimuli like those presented via tactile aids are necessary for determining stimulus aspects that lead to greater identifiability. A tighter coupling of basic processing considerations to tactile aid applications has promise for advancing our understanding of both areas. The primary area investigated in the present proposal involves the stimulus aspects that determine the identifiability of speech stimuli presented via tactile displays. Series of experiments examine variations in stimulus location, direction and extent of stimulus movement, perceived intensity, and temporal cues, both separately and in combination, to determine their relative salience in discriminability of stimuli presented via tactile aids. Models that quantify the contribution of each stimulus dimension will be constructed and evaluated. A different set of experiments approaches the same issue by correlating physical outputs of the tactile display with perceptual confusions for the same stimuli, to investigate physical aspects of tactile speech stimuli that contribute to identifiability. Finally, issues of device specificity are addressed by comparing performance for different tactile arrays on subsets of the tasks described above. Overall, the results of the proposed experiments should enhance. our understanding of tactile processing of complex stimuli, such as those presented via tactile speech aids, and should also provide guidance for improving designs for displaying speech information via tactile aids.