Semi-transparent video interfaces to assist deaf persons in meetings

Abstract

Meetings are a vital part of participation in social activities. For a deaf person who does not understand spoken language, following a discourse at meetings can become confusing if there are too many simultaneous sources of information. When the person focuses on one source of information, he misses information from another source; for example, while looking at a presenter's slides, the person misses information from the signing interpreter. Using semi-transparent video technology we have developed two applications to assist the deaf in local group meetings and remote personal meetings. The features of the applications were iteratively designed, as we incorporated feedback from the Deaf community. This research is an extension of our Facetop research project, which applies semi-transparent video for people without sensory disabilities.

A Review of Data Gathering Methods for Evaluating Socially Assistive Systems

“…Nine studies developed SASs for children with ASD [ 20 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 ], indicating an early intervention in autism. Among seven studies of people with listening and speech impairments, most of them (5/7) developed SASs for people with deafness [ 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 ]. The other two studies focused on deaf-and-dumb people [ 48 ] and people with speech or language impairment [ 49 ].…”

“…A total of 31 studies gathered interview data; 27 of these studies organized (one-on-one) personal interviews, while seven studies [ 34 , 45 , 59 , 60 , 68 , 70 , 72 ] conducted group interviews (e.g., group discussions or focus groups); among them, three studies, i.e., [ 59 , 60 , 68 ], were organized to complement both personal and group perspectives. Context wise, the primary target group of these studies consisted of older adults (12 studies with 4 studies focused on older adults with dementia), children with ASD (N = 5 studies), people with visual impairment (N = 8 studies), people with hearing loss (N = 3 studies), physical disability (N = 2 studies), or communication disorder (N = 1 study).…”

“…However, most studies only had a passing description of the interview process. A few studies had limited, or rather weak, descriptions on how the interviews had been conducted, i.e., [ 45 , 53 , 56 , 59 , 70 , 78 , 87 ].…”

Supporting medical conversations between deaf and hearing individuals with tabletop displays

“…There is also work using peripheral displays to visualize various channels of auditory information for deaf individuals [11]. The Facetop Tablet project examined visual attention problems that deaf individuals experience when trying to view a presentation, watch an ASL interpreter, and take notes [13]. This project presents a viable approach for helping deaf individuals follow a conversation with hearing individuals but it does not explicitly help deaf individuals communicate or become active participants in the conversation.…”

Light-Emitting Device for Supporting Auditory Awareness of Hearing-Impaired People during Group Conversations

“…One system assists hearing impaired and hearing individuals during conversations by using tabletop displays [4]. And a semi-transparent video system has been developed in order to help hearing impaired people [5]. Although they require several specific environmental conditions Additionally, some systems indicate sounds in the environment by lighting or vibration [6], [7], [8], [9].…”