The Vuphonics System

Principal researcher

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End date: Ongoing

Description: The "Vuphonics" system is an experimental sensory-substitution system for use by blind and deafblind people. The Vuphonics system highlights the features of visual images that are normally perceived categorically, by substituting with coded sound effects and their tactile equivalents. It simulates the "instant recognition" of properties and objects that occurs in visual perception, by using the near-instantaneous recognition of phoneme sounds that occurs in speech. By listening to coded phonetic sounds (and feeling corresponding tactile/braille effects), the user can instantly understand the colours, textures, distances and "entities" that are present in an image. The system also conveys shape, location, "fine texture" and "change".

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Last updated: 08/04/2008