Tutorial Proposal for ACHI 2010x

Tutorial Proposal for ACHI 2010Exploring Sensory Substitution Techniques:Crossmodal Audio-Tactile displays - Using the skin to hearCrossmodal displays offer alternative means of experiencing one type of sensoryinformation using a different modality. There has already been a great deal ofresearch into the translation of images onto tactile displays including theBrainport tongue vision system (http://vision.wicab.com/technology/), fingertipbraille displays (http://www.cim.mcgill.ca/~vleves/TAP05/2-VBD.php ), and morecomplex tactile vision systems(http://www.esenseproject.org/minimalTVSS.html), however music translationshave been primarily focused on the visual senses(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cymatics), with little attention given to the tactileproperties of music.Because sound is vibration, much of what is detectible through our auditorysystem is also detectable through the skin. However, the complexity of music andsound in general makes it difficult to interpret as tactile vibrations. Previousresearch into audio-tactile translations primarily focus on voice translations thatpresent sound as vibrations to the fingertips and arms, as in the vocoder(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocoder), which can effectively assist deaf ordeaf/blind people in accessing information from speech through the tactilesenses.Unlike voice, music presents significantly more complexity than the voice, posingadditional challenges to researchers attempting to make this form of ...