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Virginia Tech

Enabling the Blind to See Gestures

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

Mathematics instruction and discourse typically involve two modes of communication: speech and graphical presentation. For the communication to remain situated, dynamic synchrony must be maintained between the speech and dynamic focus in the graphics. Sighted students use vision for two purposes: access to graphical material and awareness of embodied behavior. This embodiment awareness keeps communication situated with visual material and speech. Our goal is to assist students who are blind or visually impaired (SBVI) in the access to such instruction/communication. We employ the typical approach of sensory replacement for the missing visual sense. Haptic fingertip reading can replace visual material. We want to make the SBVI aware of the deictic gestures performed by the teacher over the graphic in conjunction with speech. We employ a haptic glove interface to facilitate this embodiment awareness. In this research, we address issues from the conception through the design, implementation, evaluation to the effective and successful use of our Haptic Deictic System (HDS) in inclusive classrooms.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Ph. D.
Level thesis:degree_level
doctoral
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Computer Science
Department dc:contributor.department
Computer Science
Grantor dc:publisher
Virginia Tech
Year dc:date.issued
2010

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Oliveira, Francisco Carlos De Mattos Brito
Chair dc:contributor.committeechair
  • Quek, Francis K. H.
Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember
  • Harrison, Steven R.
  • Tatar, Deborah Gail
  • Gracanin, Denis
  • Smith-Jackson, Tonya L.

Subjects

dc:subject × 5

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • In Copyright

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Dc Identifier Other
etd-08032010-124352
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/28508

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Virginia Tech
Base URL
vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Oliveira, Francisco Carlos De Mattos Brito. Enabling the Blind to See Gestures. doctoral thesis, Virginia Tech, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/28508