Добавил:
kiopkiopkiop18@yandex.ru t.me/Prokururor I Вовсе не секретарь, но почту проверяю Опубликованный материал нарушает ваши авторские права? Сообщите нам.
Вуз: Предмет: Файл:
Ординатура / Офтальмология / Английские материалы / Assistive Technology for Visually Impaired and Blinde People_Hersh,Jonson_2008.pdf
Скачиваний:
0
Добавлен:
28.03.2026
Размер:
12.16 Mб
Скачать

4.9 Concluding Remarks

159

4.9 Concluding Remarks

Haptics is a very capable sense whose potentials have not been generally recognized. However, it does not have the capacity of vision to get an immediate overview and to cover space far away. Its strength is in near-space where the bare hands in real environments can very competently perform many tasks, including, for instance identification of objects and judging surface properties. This capacity has been utilized in several low-tech aids for the visually impaired. The success of many of them is a memento, demonstrating that the important aspect of devices for the blind is that they are adapted to the functioning of the replacing sense. More technically advanced aids have been developed but with more moderate success. They make in many cases information available that would be very helpful if it were sufficiently adapted to the senses in question. It is a great challenge to develop aids that present really useful information to the users and make possible a well functioning interaction between user and aid.

Acknowledgement. The author’s research reported here was funded by the Swedish Council for Research in Humanities and Social Sciences, the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Fund, the Swedish Transport and Communication Research Board and the EU projects TIDE- BP-1148 – MOBIC, IST-2000-29580-PURE-FORM, IST-2003-511592 STP MICOLE and IST- 2004-002114-ENACTIVE.

Questions

Q.1 What are the most important characteristics of the haptic sense?

Q.2 What are the differences between the use of haptics in natural contexts and with aids for the visually impaired?

Q.3 Discuss the reasons for the relatively larger problems using technically advanced aids, as compared with those using low-tech aids?

Q.4 How can graphics be made accessible to those who cannot see?

Q.5 How can auditory information contribute to the usefulness of haptic information when vision is not available?

Q.6 In what ways can haptic displays be useful as aids for visually impaired people, and what remains to be done to improve their usefulness?

Projects

P.1 There are several websites discussing accessibility problems for visually impaired people where many different ways are described. Sometimes there are suggestions including haptics, sometimes haptics is not mentioned. Find out what haptic options are mentioned and look for cases where such options are not mentioned but where you can find out suggestions. Here are some major addresses: American Printing House for the Blind (APH, undated), American Foundation for the Blind (AFB, undated), Royal National Institute of the Blind (RNIB, undated) and Trace Research & Development Center (TRACE, undated).