A vest that allows the profoundly deaf to “feel” and understand speech is under development at Rice University in the US.
The vest features dozens of embedded sensors that respond to input from a phone or tablet app that isolates speech from ambient sound and then converts it into tactile vibration patterns on the user’s torso to represent words.
The prototype is being tested with positive results, with test subjects, some of them deaf from birth, “listened” to spoken words and wrote them on a white board.
Scott Novich, a doctoral student in electrical and computer engineering who is working on the project comments, “We’ve already run some simple experiments with both hearing and deaf people,” Novich says. “As they use the vest more, they get feedback, and know whether they are right or wrong and start to memorize patterns. People are able to identify words they have never encountered before.”
Do you know of any other technologies available now or under development that may help people who have hearing difficulties please let us know.
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