ARI Guest Talk
When: 7 April 2022, 11am
Where: Acoustics Research Institute, Seminar room, Ground floor, Wohllebengasse 12-14, 1040 Wien
For the physical participation, the current Covid-19 restrictions will be enforced.
Auditory and tactile sensory systems share a number of similarities. Through mechanoreceptors they both encode vibration in the frequency range up to 1000 Hz. In addition, simultaneous auditory and tactile inputs are easily perceptually integrated. We present here the results of two studies using our in-house tactile set-ups. The first study shows that low-frequency vibration on fingertips can significantly improve understanding of distorted speech in noise. The findings of the second study indicate that after a brief training people can localise "sound' objects moving in space through specifically designed tactile inputs. The outcomes have implications for both entertainment (e.g., VR) and rehabilitation because both speech understanding in noise and sound localisation are especially challenging for the hearing impaired population.