Wearable musical haptic sleeves for people with hearing impairment

Abstract

Music is a multi-dimensional entity and can be experienced in different forms, such as sound, vibrations or visual displays. This experience is typically confined to people without hearing impairments, but for people with hearing impairments, it can be difficult or impossible to enjoy and experience this form of art. Recent technological advancement offers some opportunities through which attempts can be made to provide musical experience to people with hearing impairment. The purpose of this research is to develop an affordable wearable haptic device for people with hearing disabilities to experience music. This device can be helpful for people with reduced hearing as well as with complete deafness. In this project, we adopt a design development strategy which is based on testing different assistive technologies and to check their efficacy to transmit musical notes into other human sensory inputs. The final prototype consists of Vibrotactile sleeves with bone conduction speakers. These sleeves provide sensory input of vibrations via bone conduction speakers. The prototype is developed based on subjects' surveys and feedback on different assistive technologies. To test our prototype, we developed a visualization system which gives visual clues that represent the given musical notes. A formal user testing with five participants suggests that this system can be used to provide the musical experience to people with hearing impairments.