Individual HRTF measurements for accurate obstacle sonification in an electronic travel aid for the blind

Pec, Michal; Bujacz, Michal; Strumiłło, Paweł; Materka, Andrzej

doi:10.1109/icses.2008.4673402

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…In terms of vertical localisation within hearing, users are typically very limited (3.65 - Perrott & Saberi, 1990; with movement increasing this resolution -Strybel, Manligas, & Perrott, 1992). As such, there is room to improve spatial localisation in audio SSDs to reach this level, most likely through personalised rather than generic HRTFs (reaching 9.47 - Pec, Bujacz, Strumillo, & Materka, 2008). There also exists the possibility of exaggerating natural elevation cues from the pinnae or spatial coordinates for peripheral stimuli, although it is currently unclear if any perceptual or spatial exaggerations can be effectively utilised or integrated with veridical hearing.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Much Spatial Information Is Lost in the Sensory Substitution Process? Comparing Visual, Tactile, and Auditory Approaches

et al. 2019

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Much Spatial Information Is Lost in the Sensory Substitution Process? Comparing Visual, Tactile, and Auditory Approaches

et al. 2019

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“…Indeed, research has shown that cheaper headphones and bone-conduction headphones have diminished performance in location perception with HRTFs when compared to over-ear or other expensive headphones [Mascetti et al 2016;Stanley and Walker 2006;Voong and Oehler 2019]. However, this performance degradation seems limited to the elevation dimension, which is drastically improved when the HRTFs are adjusted for the bone-conduction pathway [Pec et al 2008;Stanley and Walker 2006]. Another way around the performance issue in the elevation dimension is to transmit the elevation angle by adjusting the audio tone's pitch, such as in the work by Durette et al [2008].…”

Section: Previous Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental Analysis of a Spatialised Audio Interface for People with Visual Impairments

Lock

Gilchrist

Cielniak

et al. 2020

ACM Trans. Access. Comput.

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Sound perception is a fundamental skill for many people with severe sight impairments. The research presented in this paper is part of an ongoing project with the aim to create a mobile guidance aid to help people with vision impairments find objects within an unknown indoor environment. This system requires an effective non-visual interface and uses bone-conduction headphones to transmit audio instructions to the user. It has been implemented and tested with spatialised audio cues, which convey the direction of a predefined target in 3D space. We present an in-depth evaluation of the audio interface with several experiments that involve a large number of participants, both blindfolded and with actual visual impairments, and analyse the pros and cons of our design choices. In addition to producing results comparable to the state-of-the-art, we found that Fitts's Law (a predictive model for human movement) provides a suitable a metric that can be used to improve and refine the quality of the audio interface in future mobile navigation aids. CCS Concepts: • Human-centered computing → HCI theory, concepts and models; Laboratory experiments; Sound-based input / output; Pointing devices; Empirical studies in accessibility.

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“…To enable utilization of both HRTF filtering and MIDI instruments, banks of wave sound files were generated using the Microsoft General MIDI synthesizer and modulated with 5% noise (14 dB SNR). This is because previous studies had showed that such virtual sources had been better localized than clean instrument sounds (Pec et al, 2008). The banks contained 5 s long tones from the diatonic scale (octaves 2 through 4), although the default pitches used in the sonification of obstacles spanned from tone G2 (98 Hz) to B4 (493 Hz) and for walls from G3 (196 Hz) to G4 (392 Hz).…”

Section: Naviton Sonification Algorithmmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sonification: Review of Auditory Display Solutions in Electronic Travel Aids for the Blind

Bujacz¹,

Strumiłło²

2016

Archives of Acoustics

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Sonification is defined as presentation of information by means of non-speech audio. In assistive technologies for the blind, sonification is most often used in electronic travel aids (ETAs) - devices which aid in independent mobility through obstacle detection or help in orientation and navigation. The presented review contains an authored classification of various sonification schemes implemented in the most widely known ETAs. The review covers both those commercially available and those in various stages of research, according to the input used, level of signal processing algorithm used and sonification methods. Additionally, a sonification approach developed in the Naviton project is presented. The prototype utilizes stereovision scene reconstruction, obstacle and surface segmentation and spatial HRTF filtered audio with discrete musical sounds and was successfully tested in a pilot study with blind volunteers in a controlled environment, allowing to localize and navigate around obstacles.

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Individual HRTF measurements for accurate obstacle sonification in an electronic travel aid for the blind

Cited by 7 publications

References 3 publications

How Much Spatial Information Is Lost in the Sensory Substitution Process? Comparing Visual, Tactile, and Auditory Approaches

How Much Spatial Information Is Lost in the Sensory Substitution Process? Comparing Visual, Tactile, and Auditory Approaches

Experimental Analysis of a Spatialised Audio Interface for People with Visual Impairments

Sonification: Review of Auditory Display Solutions in Electronic Travel Aids for the Blind

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