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Matthias Schmidmaier
Abstract Sensory substitution enables the experience of one sense through another one, mostly by using input from artificial
modalities. Since the 1960s, sensory substitution devices have been developed to compensate sensory impairments, for example
by seeing with the tongue. Thereby sensory substitution studies have provided insight into the functionality and the abilities of the
human brain. Above all during the past years, the technological progress enabled interesting new and further developments that
in some cases already are suitable for daily use. In addition, sensory substitution technologies have also been used for sensory
augmentation. This paper presents several current applications in the fields of accessibility and sensory augmentation. For a better
understanding, also a general review of the history and the physiological and technological principles of sensory substitution systems
is given. Furthermore, possible future developments of this research area are considered.
Index Termssensory substitution systems, sensory augmentation, multimodal human-computer interaction
1 I NTRODUCTION
Allowing blind people to see and deaf people to hear [25]. While (TVSS). The device transmitted camera signals to a grid of 20 x 20
some people reading this statement might think about religious mir- vibro-tactile stimulators. Moving the camera, visually impaired sub-
acles, it leads to a field of multimodal human-computer interaction jects laying on the grid were able to recognize lines and shapes [3].
called sensory substitution. An important result of testing TVSS was the fact that the system only
Multimodal HCI systems are defined as systems that receive in- worked when subjects were able to move the camera during usage.
put information from several modalities, whereas a modality might be Hence TVSS contributed in a great measure to future studies in brain
seen as a mode of communication according to the human senses or research, especially concerning brain plasticity [4, 16]. Bach-y-Ritas
as a human related computer input device. For human-computer com- studies might also be seen as the initiator of the development of sen-
munication, several input modalities receive information from a user sory substitution systems based on human-machine interfaces. In the
to enable multimodal interaction with a computer [12]. However, in following years and decades, devices were not only developed for tac-
the context of sensory substitution, modalities are the human senses tile vision but also for other kinds of substitution like ultrasonic vi-
on which a sensory substitution system is based on. sion (The Sonic Pathfinder, 1984 [16]), audible vision (The vOICe,
In general, sensory substitution means the translation of sensory in- 1992 [19]), tactile hearing (The Tactaid, 1995 [30]) or tactile balance
formation in order to enable perception through another than the origi- (Vestibular aid TDU, 1998 [30]).
nally responsible sense. For this purpose sensory substitution systems At the end of the 20th century, due to the fast technological progress
use human-computer interfaces to transmit sensory information cap- of the last decades, a lot of these devices have been evolved to improve
tured by an artificial modality to a human sense [30, 16]. In this way, quality and suitability for daily use. Furthermore, studies started to
sensory impaired people are enabled to compensate their impairment. deal with the futuristic possibilities of sensory augmentation. Besides
Besides this purpose, sensory substitution systems also have been used for the compensation of sensory impairments, applications have been
for brain research and, especially during the past few years, for sensory developed to enhance existing senses or enable even new kinds of per-
augmentation, which means the addition of information to an existing ception. An example for a sensory augmentation system is the Tactile
sensory channel [5]. Thus, current sensory substitution systems are Situation Awareness System (TSAS) which has been developed since
also developed to enhance the natural human senses, or even add new the end of the 1990s and helps pilots in spatial orientation by tactile
ones like for example magnetic perception for orientation. feedback [18]. Therefore, current sensory substitution systems can be
distinguished in assistive and augmentative devices.
2 H ISTORY
Until today, Braille can be considered to be the most popular sen-
sory substitution system [4]. This system was developed in 1840 with
the intention to aid blind people acquiring visual information through
touch [30]. Another successful communication aid is sign language
which was developed in the 18th century. According to Bach-y-Rita
and Kercel one might even consider reading to be the first sensory
substitution system, as auditory information (spoken words) is pre-
sented in a visual way (writing) [4]. In 1897 Kazimierz Noiszewski
invented the first technical sensory substitution device called Elektrof-
talm [30]. Using a light sensitive selenium cell, it expressed brightness
as auditory information in order to enable blind people distinguishing
light and dark spaces. Although this system was evolved several times,
for example as head worn vision system (see Fig. 1), the pioneer of
sensory substitution systems is considered to be Bach-y-Rita [30]. In
the 1960s Bach-y-Rita created the Tactile Visual Sensory Substitution
Fig. 1. Left: Tactile Vision Sensory Substitution System (Bach-y-Rita
et al., 1969) [3]. Right: Later version of Noiszewskis Elektroftalm
Matthias Schmidmaier is studying Media Informatics at the University of (Starkiewicz, 1970) [17]
Munich, Germany, E-mail: schmidmaier@cip.ifi.lmu.de
This research paper was written for the Media Informatics Advanced
Seminar on Multimodal Human-Computer Interaction, 2010 / 2011 3 P HYSIOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES
The basic physiological principle which enables sensory substitution is
the fact that the human brain keeps the ability to use a sense, although
the related peripheral receptor might not perceive signals anymore. high quality stimulation. However, the general composition has not
Considering for example the visual system, the optic nerve transforms changed until today.
an image received by the retina into electrical signals which are inter- An important part of the technological concept of sensory substitu-
preted in the brain. For substituting a broken retina, signals might be tion devices is the sensory display which is responsible for stimulation.
captured by a camera then transformed and sent to the brain, using a The most popular sensory displays during the last decades have been
human-machine interface [4]. To understand this functionality of sen- tactile displays [16]. Hence, the architecture of devices and the devel-
sory substitution, it is important to understand the principles of brain opment and advantages of tactile displays are shown in the following.
plasticity and human perception. In addition, the way of classification for sensory substitution systems
which is used to categorize the presented applications later in this pa-
3.1 Senses and perception per is described.
Dealing with sensory substitution, it is recommended to bring to mind 4.1 Architecture
how sensing and perception work. The five most known human senses
are vision, hearing, touch, smell and taste. But there are also additional Sensory substitution systems in general consist of three components
senses, such as feeling pain and temperature, the sense of balance or as illustrated in Fig. 2: a sensor, a coupling device and actuators [30].
spatial sensation [22]. A human sense is defined as the faculty by Sensors capture information x(t) about the environment and transmit
which stimuli are perceived and conditions outside and within the body it to a coupling device. A sensor can be a modality which simply
are distinguished and evaluated [22]. That means that information is receives signals, like a camera or a microphone, or also emits signals
captured by sense organs and then passed on to the nervous system in like a laser or a ultrasound device. Depending on the system, sensing
order to get processed in the brain. Therefore, perception usually is devices may differ in range, location, accuracy or mode of user control.
described as the recognition and interpretation of sensory information. Yet, independent of the kind of its other characteristics, the sensor
However, studies on sensory substitution have shown that percep- should enable autonomous handling by the user. As already mentioned
tion must not only be seen as processing of environmental sensory in context with senses and perception, the active handling of the sensor
information. Testing several sensory substitution devices lead to the device by the subject is an important condition for the successful use
conclusion that there is no perception without action [16]. It was of a sensory substitution system. Therefore, also the interaction of the
found that Bach-y-Ritas TVSS only successfully worked if the sub- user with the sensor modality is shown in Fig. 2.
jects were able to manipulate the camera themselves. An experiment, The coupling device converts the received information into signals
run by Lenay and others, delivered equal results: a photoelectric sen- y(t) for activating a display of actuators (sensory display). This dis-
sor with an angle of sensitivity of about 20 degree was fixed on a finger play sends impulses to a human sensory modality which forwards the
of a subject. A vibrotactile device notified the user, if the sensor was information to the brain. Depending to the sensory modality, stimu-
pointing towards a light source. Blindfolded subjects who were not lation may be for example realized through loudspeakers or a tactile
allowed to move the sensor, were not able to use the stimulation for display. The choice of coupling device and display, strongly depends
vision, as they only knew whether there was a point of light in front on the kind of associated human sensory pathways. So for example
of their finger or not. Subjects who were allowed to move the sen- for a video-based sensor, the human vision information processing ca-
sor, were able to recognize the direction and position of a light source. pabilities have to be considered [16, 30].
Thus it has to be assumed that perception does not only depend on
sensory, but also on motor information [16].
5.1.5 Emoti-Chair
The Emoti-Chair realizes tactile hearing with the aim to transfer the
emotional part of music [13]. The user can experience sounds by sit-
ting on a chair with an implemented Model Human Cochlea (MHC)
system (see Fig. 8) [14]. The MHC is a sensory substitution system
that converts sounds into vibrations which are transmitted by multi-
ple loudspeakers. Its design refers to the functionality of the human
cochlea. Just as the cochlea uses tiny hair cells to receive different
frequencies, the MHC uses several audio channels, each assigned to
a specific frequency range. Vibrating devices, which in turn are as-
signed to these channels, are responsible for tactile stimulation. Fig. 8 Fig. 9. HyperBraille device used to display graphical content [21].
shows a prototype of a MHC, consisting of eight speakers used as vi-
brating devices. The quality of the experienced sensation through the
MHC system can be increased by increasing the number of channels,
as more individual frequencies can be distinguished by the user. Thus 5.1.7 Voice-based touch screen accessibility
the distinction of different parts of music may be improved. Voice-based screen readers are audible vision devices that enable visu-
The MHC which is used in the Emoti-Chair consists of eight audio- ally impaired people to interact with computers. Thereby, the content
tactile channels. Voice coils are used as vibrating devices, as they are of the screen is scanned and displayed in audible form with speech
directly driven by audio signals. They are arranged on the chair as or sounds. However, as these systems usually are based on keyboard
a two column by eight row array. The input sound first is processed and mouse input, it is hardly possible to interact with touch screens in
by an eight channel sound card and divided into different frequency this way. Due to the increasing usage of touch screens during the past
bands. The signals of each frequency band are transmitted to an am- years, above all in handhold devices like smartphones, some assistive
plifier and assigned to the corresponding audio channel. Finally, vi- applications have been developed to solve this problem [28].
brotactile stimulation to the skin is caused by the voice coils. Accord- Current touch screen accessibility interfaces still rest upon voice-
ing to subjects who have used the Emoti-Chair, it is clearly possible based screen reading. Hence, the user is able to explore the content
to distinguish between different songs, genres and qualities of music. on the screen by simply touching it. If an element is selected in this
[13, 14] way, it is read out without being activated. To activate an recognized
element it usually has to be selected a second time. Two applications
that realize audible vision for touch screens in this way are Apples
VoiceOver and the Talking Tap Twice (TTT) for the Android operat-
ing system. In addition, VoiceOver also supports alternative ways of
navigation by using finger gestures [28].