Preliminary research with a three channel vibrotactile speech reception aid for the deaf

J. D. Miller, A. M. Engebretson, C. L. DeFilippo

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

Envelopes of signals from an accelerometer attached to the talker's nose, a microphone near his mouth, and an accelerometer attached to his throat were multiplied by a 100 Hz square wave and the products were used to drive three vibrators. Normally hearing subjects with simulated total loss of hearing for speech felt signals on vibrator 1 proportional to the amplitude of vibration in the talker's nose, on vibrator 2 proportional to the amplitude of sound near the talker's mouth, and on vibrator 3 proportional to the amplitude of vibration in the talker's larynx. The vibrators were on separate fingers of the same hand or on a single finger. When the three channel aid is used with lipreading, scores on syllable and word tests are better (sometimes dramatically) than with lipreading alone. Improvement is demonstrated for nasal/oral, voiced/voiceless, and continuant/interrupted discriminations. Variations in vowel duration as with voiced and voiceless final consonants are clearly felt.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)S64
JournalJournal of the Acoustical Society of America
Volume55
Issue numbersup
StatePublished - Jan 1 1974

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