Tactile Speech Communication: Reception of Words and Two-Way Messages through a Phoneme-Based Display
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virtualworlds-03-00010.pdf
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3.12 MB
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Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
3262da909f8c609fae4a8c9e0ea5d69d
Author(s)
Jung, Jaehong
Reed, Charlotte M.
Martinez, Juan S.
Tan, Hong Z.
Date Issued
May 7, 2024
Journal
Virtual Worlds
Publisher
MDPI AG
Citation
Jung, J.; Reed, C.M.; Martinez, J.S.; Tan, H.Z. Tactile Speech Communication: Reception of Words and Two-Way Messages through a Phoneme-Based Display. Virtual Worlds 2024, 3, 184-207.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
The long-term goal of this research is the development of a stand-alone tactile device for the communication of speech for persons with profound sensory deficits as well as for applications for persons with intact hearing and vision. Studies were conducted with a phoneme-based tactile display of speech consisting of a 4-by-6 array of tactors worn on the dorsal and ventral surfaces of the forearm. Unique tactile signals were assigned to the 39 English phonemes. Study I consisted of training and testing on the identification of 4-phoneme words. Performance on a trained set of 100 words averaged 87% across the three participants and generalized well to a novel set of words (77%). Study II consisted of two-way messaging between two users of TAPS (TActile Phonemic Sleeve) for 13 h over 45 days. The participants conversed with each other by inputting text that was translated into tactile phonemes sent over the device. Messages were identified with an accuracy of 73% correct in conjunction with 82% of the words. Although rates of communication were slow (roughly 1 message per minute), the results obtained with this ecologically valid procedure represent progress toward the goal of a stand-alone tactile device for speech communication.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Research Laboratory of Electronics
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Creative Commons Attribution
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.3390/virtualworlds3020010
