3D Virtual Environments for the Rehabilitation of the Blind (original) (raw)
Related papers
Computers & education, 2015
This paper presents the integration of a virtual environment (BlindAid) in an orientation and mobility rehabilitation program as a training aid for people who are blind. BlindAid allows the users to interact with different virtual structures and objects through auditory and haptic feedback. This research explores if and how use of the BlindAid in conjunction with a rehabilitation program can help people who are blind train themselves in familiar and unfamiliar spaces. The study, focused on nine participants who were congenitally, adventitiously, and newly blind, during their orientation and mobility rehabilitation program at the Carroll Center for the Blind (Newton, Massachusetts, USA). The research was implemented using virtual environment (VE) exploration tasks and orientation tasks in virtual environments and real spaces. The methodology encompassed both qualitative and quantitative methods, including interviews, a questionnaire, videotape recording, and user computer logs. The r...
Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 2013
BlindAid, a virtual environment system developed in part for orientation and mobility training of newly, adventitiously, and congenitally blind persons, allows interaction with different virtual structures and objects via auditory and haptic feedback. This research examined whether and how the system might help people who are blind develop orientation and mobility skills within a traditional rehabilitation program. Nine clients at The Carroll Center for the Blind (Newton, MA) explored VEs and performed virtual orientation tasks in addition to their traditional orientation and mobility training. The virtual training gave the participants additional time to learn systematic exploration and orientation strategies and their performance was evaluated using qualitative and quantitative methods. The findings supply strong evidence that practicing with the BlindAid system does enhance traditional orientation and mobility training in these areas.
Virtual environment support orientation skills of newly blind
2011 International Conference on Virtual Rehabilitation, 2011
The newly blind face enormous emotional, cognitive and physical difficulties in the first stage of rehabilitation. During the traditional orientation and mobility rehabilitation program, the newly blind are trained in basic orientation and mobility skills. The virtual system BlindAid aimed to serve as a simulator for the subject to practice his or her new spatial knowledge and orientation and mobility strategies. The two main goals of this research were to examine: (1) the exploration strategies and process of the newly blind when using a virtual environment; (2) the contribution of the virtual environment exploration process to performance on orientation tasks in virtual environments and real spaces. The findings supply evidence that interaction with the BlindAid system by people who are newly blind provides the participants' development of comprehensive cognitive maps of actual known and unknown spaces during their rehabilitation program.
Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, 2015
Introduction The BlindAid, a virtual system developed for orientation and mobility (O&M) training of people who are blind or have low vision, allows interaction with different virtual components (structures and objects) via auditory and haptic feedback. This research examined if and how the BlindAid that was integrated within an O&M training program could be of help when teaching those who are blind or visually impaired to develop O&M skills. Methods Using qualitative and quantitative methods, this research focused on 16 participants during their O&M course, and studied virtual environment exploration and orientation tasks in virtual environments. Results The encouraging results of the current study indicate the potential strengths of the BlindAid system as an O&M training device for visually impaired people. Discussion Follow-up research evaluating transference of knowledge from virtual environments to real spaces could contribute to O&M training for people who are visually impaire...
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 2014
For profoundly blind individuals, navigating in an unfamiliar building can represent a significant challenge. We investigated the use of an audio-based, virtual environment called Audio-based Environment Simulator (AbES) that can be explored for the purposes of learning the layout of an unfamiliar, complex indoor environment. Furthermore, we compared two modes of interaction with AbES. In one group, blind participants implicitly learned the layout of a target environment while playing an exploratory, goal-directed video game. By comparison, a second group was explicitly taught the same layout following a standard route and instructions provided by a sighted facilitator. As a control, a third group interacted with AbES while playing an exploratory, goal-directed video game however, the explored environment did not correspond to the target layout. Following interaction with AbES, a series of route navigation tasks were carried out in the virtual and physical building represented in the training environment to assess the transfer of acquired spatial information. We found that participants from both modes of interaction were able to transfer the spatial knowledge gained as indexed by their successful route navigation performance. This transfer was not apparent in the control participants. Most notably, the game-based learning strategy was also associated with enhanced performance when participants were required to find alternate routes and short cuts within the target building suggesting that a ludic-based training approach may provide for a more flexible mental representation of the environment. Furthermore, outcome comparisons between early and late blind individuals suggested that greater prior visual experience did not have a significant effect on overall navigation performance following training. Finally, performance did not appear to be associated with other factors of interest such as age, gender, and verbal memory recall. We conclude that the highly interactive and immersive exploration of the virtual environment greatly engages a blind user to develop skills akin to positive near transfer of learning. Learning through a game play strategy appears to confer certain behavioral advantages with respect to how spatial information is acquired and ultimately manipulated for navigation. Citation: Connors EC, Chrastil ER, Sánchez J and Merabet LB (2014) Virtual environments for the transfer of navigation skills in the blind: a comparison of directed instruction vs. video game based learning approaches. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 8:223.
2010
BlindAid is a virtual environment (VE) system that enables blind people to more easily learn about new environments on their own. The system is implemented on a desktop personal computer with a Phantom haptic interface and three-dimensional spatialized audio. In addition to providing blind users with non-visual stimuli similar to what they will depend on in the actual environment, the system is designed to enhance and accelerate the user's understanding of the unknown environment by giving him/her the ability to interact with the VE in ways that are not possible in the real world. The BlindAid system was developed and evaluated as part of an experimental study related to how people who are blind build cognitive maps of their physical environment and how recent advances in VE technology might support orientation and mobility (O&M) training. The current system is able to provide a visual display and record the user's actions in the VE for later review by researchers and O&M instructors. The paper focuses on the technical development of the system with some results from an initial evaluation by four blind volunteers.
Design and implementation of virtual environments training of the visually impaire
Proceedings of the fifth international ACM conference on Assistive technologies - Assets '02, 2002
This paper presents the virtual reality applications developed for the feasibility study tests of the EU funded IST project ENORASI. ENORASI aims at developing a highly interactive and extensible haptic VR training system that allows visually impaired people, especially those blind from birth, to study and interact with various virtual objects. A number of custom applications have been developed based on the interface provided by the CyberGrasp haptic device. Eight test categories were identified and corresponding tests were developed for each category. Twenty-six blind persons conducted the tests and the evaluation results have shown ~the degree of acceptance of the technology and the feasibility of the proposed approach.