research-article

Low-fi skin vision: a case study in rapid prototyping a sensory substitution system

Authors:

Yvonne RogersAuthors Info & Claims

BCS-HCI '09: Proceedings of the 23rd British HCI Group Annual Conference on People and Computers: Celebrating People and Technology

Pages 55 - 64

Published: 01 September 2009 Publication History

Abstract

We describe the design process we have used to develop a minimal, twenty vibration motor Tactile Vision Sensory Substitution (TVSS) system which enables blind-folded subjects to successfully track and bat a rolling ball and thereby experience 'skin vision'. We have employed a low-fi rapid prototyping approach to build this system and argue that this methodology is particularly effective for building embedded interactive systems. We support this argument in two ways. First, by drawing on theoretical insights from robotics, a discipline that also has to deal with the challenge of building complex embedded systems that interact with their environments; second, by using the development of our TVSS as a case study: describing the series of prototypes that led to our successful design and highlighting what we learnt at each stage.

References

[1]

Arduino lilypad sewable electronic components http://web.media.mit.edu/leah/lilypad/.

[2]

Arduino open source microcontrollers http://www.arduino.cc.

[3]

Instructables user-created and uploaded do-it-yourself projects http://www.instructables.com.

[4]

openframeworks open source c++ library for creative coding http://wiki.openframeworks.cc/.

[5]

Precision microdrives - supplier of vibration and other motors http://www.precisionmicrodrives.com.

[6]

Processing open source programming language and environment http://www.processing.org.

[7]

Soyntec joinsee 110 webcam http://www.soyntec.com.

[8]

Tlc5940 arduino library http://code.google.com/p/tlc5940arduino/.

[9]

P. Bach-y Rita, C. C. Collins, F. A. Saunders, B. White, and L. Scadden. Vision substitution by tactile image projection. Nature, 221:963--964, 1969.

[10]

P. Bach-y Rita and S. Kercel. Sensory substitution and the human machine interface. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 12(12):541--546, 2003.

[11]

M. Banzi. Getting Started with Arduino. O'Reilly, 2009.

Digital Library

[12]

J. Bird and P. Layzell. The evolved radio and its implications for modelling the evolution of novel sensors. In D. Fogel, M. El-Sharkawi, X. Yao, G. Greenwood, H. Iba, P. Marrow, and M. Shackleton, editors, Proceedings of the 2002 Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC 2002), pages 1836--1841, Piscataway, NJ, 2002. IEEE Press.

Digital Library

[13]

V. Braitenberg. Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1987.

[14]

R. A. Brooks. Intelligence without representation. Artificial Intelligence, 47:139--159, 1991.

Digital Library

[15]

L. Buechley and M. Eisenberg. Fabric pcbs, electronic sequins, and socket buttons: techniques for e-textile craft. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 13:133--150, 2009.

Digital Library

[16]

A. Cassinelli, C. Reynolds, and M. Ishikawa. Augmenting spatial awareness with haptic radar. In Tenth International Symposium on wearable computers, pages 61--64, 2006.

[17]

A. Clark. Reasons, robots and the extended mind. Mind and Language, 1(1):21--33, 2001.

[18]

A. Clark. Towards a science of the bio-technical. Cognition and Technology, 1(1):21--33, 2002.

[19]

A. Clark. Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies and the Future of Human Intelligence. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2003.

Digital Library

[20]

T. Froese and A. Spiers. Toward a phenomenological pragmatics of enactive perception. Cognitive Science Research Paper 593, University of Sussex, 2007.

[21]

I. Harvey. Robotics: Philosophy with a screwdriver. In T. T. Gomi, editor, Evolutionary Robotics: From Intelligent Robots to Artificial Life. Proceedings of the 8th International Symposium on Evolutionary Robotics (ER 2001), volume III, Toronto, Canada, 2000. AAI Books.

[22]

I. Harvey, E. Di Paolo, E. Tuci, R. Wood, and M. Quinn. Evolutionary robotics: A new scientific tool for studying cognition. Artificial Life, 11(1--2):79--98, 2005.

Digital Library

[23]

M. Heidegger. Being and Time. Harper and Row, 1962.

[24]

H. Hendriks-Jansen. Catching Ourselves in the Act: Situated Activity, Interactive Emergence, Evolution, and Human Thought. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1996.

Digital Library

[25]

N. Humphrey. A history of the mind. Simon and Schuster, New York, 1992.

[26]

G. Jannson and L. Brabyn. Tactually guided batting. Uppsala Psychological Reports 304, University of Uppsala, 1981.

[27]

S. Kercel and P. Bach-y Rita. Non-invasive coupling of electronically generated data into the human nervous system. In Wiley Encyclopedia of Biomedical Engineering. Wiley, 2003.

[28]

M. MacIver. How building physical models can reduce and guide the abstraction of nature. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24(6):1066--1067, 2001.

[29]

R. Menary. Attacking the bounds of cognition. Philosophical Psychology, 19(3):329--344, 2006.

[30]

E. Nagel. The Structure of Science: Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation. Routledge, London, 1961.

[31]

S. K. Nagel, C. Carl, T. Kringe, R. Martin, and P. Konig. Beyond sensory substitution - learning the sixth sense. Journal of Neural Engineering, 2:13--26, 2005.

[32]

A. Noe. Action in Perception. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2004.

[33]

M. Rettig. Prototyping for tiny fingers. Communications of the ACM, 37(4):21--27, 1994.

Digital Library

[34]

M. Schrage. Bringing design to software. In Cultures of Prototyping. ACM Press, 1996.

Digital Library

[35]

T. Smithers. Are autonomous agents information processing systems? In L. Steels and R. Brooks, editors, The Artificial Life Route to Artificial Intelligence, pages 123--162. Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, 1995.

[36]

B. Webb. Can robots make good models of biological behaviour? Behavioiural and Brain Sciences, 24(6):1033--1050, 2001.

Cited By

Karpashevich PHornecker EHonauer MSanches PMandryk RHancock MPerry MCox A(2018)Reinterpreting Schlemmer's Triadic BalletProceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3173574.3173635(1-13)Online publication date: 21-Apr-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3173574.3173635
Booth TStumpf SBird JJones SKaye JDruin ALampe CMorris DHourcade J(2016)Crossed WiresProceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/2858036.2858533(3485-3497)Online publication date: 7-May-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2858036.2858533
Šabanović SReeder SKechavarzi B(2014)Designing robots in the wildJournal of Human-Robot Interaction10.5898/JHRI.3.1.Sabanovic3:1(70-88)Online publication date: 28-Feb-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5898/JHRI.3.1.Sabanovic
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Low-fi skin vision: a case study in rapid prototyping a sensory substitution system
1. Information systems
  1. Information systems applications

Recommendations

Advances in the design and deployment of human-machine interfaces
ICECCS '95: Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Engineering of Complex Computer Systems

This paper reviews the process of developing real-time, human-machine interfaces (HMIs) for embedded systems. This process is described in terms of the rapid development of dynamic graphical interfaces. The necessity of rapidly prototyping the HMI is ...
Hardware design in smart home applications: rapid prototyping and embedded systems
ICOST'11: Proceedings of the 9th international conference on Toward useful services for elderly and people with disabilities: smart homes and health telematics

Research advances in smart home technologies are highly diverse and innovative[1,2,3]. Some of these novel ideas involve in creating new hardware to perform distinct functionality. In this paper, we present two effective methods for transforming these ...
Low Effort Evaluation of Real-Time and Reliability Requirements for Embedded Systems
CIT '10: Proceedings of the 2010 10th IEEE International Conference on Computer and Information Technology

Measuring reliability of embedded systems is an important but non-trivial problem. In a system design process, it is desirable to have early indicators for the reliability of an embedded system. Such reliability measurement will typically be carried out ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences

BCS-HCI '09: Proceedings of the 23rd British HCI Group Annual Conference on People and Computers: Celebrating People and Technology

September 2009

532 pages

Sponsors

British Computer Society: BCS

In-Cooperation

SIGCHI: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction

Publisher

BCS Learning & Development Ltd.

Swindon, United Kingdom

Publication History

Published: 01 September 2009

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article

Conference

BCS HCI '09

Sponsor:

British Computer Society

BCS HCI '09: British Computer Society Conference on Human-Computer Interaction

September 1 - 5, 2009

Cambridge, United Kingdom

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 28 of 62 submissions, 45%

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

7
Total Citations
View Citations
442
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)1
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0

Reflects downloads up to 26 Jan 2025

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Karpashevich PHornecker EHonauer MSanches PMandryk RHancock MPerry MCox A(2018)Reinterpreting Schlemmer's Triadic BalletProceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3173574.3173635(1-13)Online publication date: 21-Apr-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3173574.3173635
Booth TStumpf SBird JJones SKaye JDruin ALampe CMorris DHourcade J(2016)Crossed WiresProceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/2858036.2858533(3485-3497)Online publication date: 7-May-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2858036.2858533
Šabanović SReeder SKechavarzi B(2014)Designing robots in the wildJournal of Human-Robot Interaction10.5898/JHRI.3.1.Sabanovic3:1(70-88)Online publication date: 28-Feb-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5898/JHRI.3.1.Sabanovic
Atkinson DOrzechowski PPetreca BBianchi-Berthouze NWatkins PBaurley SPadilla SChantler MMackay WBrewster SBødker S(2013)Tactile perceptions of digital textilesProceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/2470654.2466221(1669-1678)Online publication date: 27-Apr-2013
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2470654.2466221
Yuill NRogers Y(2012)Mechanisms for collaborationACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction10.1145/2147783.214778419:1(1-25)Online publication date: 4-May-2012
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2147783.2147784
van der Linden JRogers YOshodi MSpiers AMcGoran DCronin RO'Dowd PLanday JShi YPatterson DRogers YXie X(2011)Haptic reassurance in the pitch black for an immersive theatre experienceProceedings of the 13th international conference on Ubiquitous computing10.1145/2030112.2030133(143-152)Online publication date: 17-Sep-2011
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2030112.2030133
Hazlewood WDalton NMarshall PRogers YHertrich SBertelsen OKrogh PHalskov KGraves Petersen M(2010)Bricolage and consultationProceedings of the 8th ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems10.1145/1858171.1858244(380-389)Online publication date: 16-Aug-2010
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1858171.1858244

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Figures

Tables

Media

View Table of Conten