These glasses help you see… with your ears!
This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.
Blindness affects about thirty-nine million people worldwide. This can make daily life more difficult! Can technology help?
Enter Howe Yuan Zhu and team from the University of Technology Sydney, Australia.
They developed smart glasses that help wearers SEE sounds! The glasses transform visual cues into distinct noises. A rustling sound might represent a plant, while a buzz could indicate a cell phone! The glasses were tested by seven blind adults and seven blindfolded – but sighted – adults. Participants used the glasses to identify and locate different items. Researchers measured their success rate, stress, and anxiety while using the glasses.
Results? With the glasses, blind participants identified and located objects with over seventy percent accuracy. And, using the glasses did NOT increase blind participants’ stress or anxiety!
These smart glasses could help visually impaired people navigate their environments more easily!
These glasses mean the world can be out of sight… but IN mind!
Reference: Zhu, H. Y., Hossain, S. N., Jin, C., Singh, A. K., Nguyen, M. T. D., Deverell, L., Nguyen, V., Gates, F. S., Fernandez, I. G., Melencio, M. V., Bell, J. R., & Lin, C.-T. (2023). An investigation into the effectiveness of using acoustic touch to assist people who are blind. PLOS ONE, 18(10), e0290431. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0290431