Minimal Tactile Vision Sensory Substitution (TVSS) System
Inspired by the pioneering work of Paul Bach-y-Rita, this prototype explores the minimal conditions under which vibration can usefully guide behaviour. Participants are blind folded and the image from either a head-mounted or fixed position camera is converted into patterns of stimulation in a vibrotactile array worn on their abdomen. Bach-y-Rita used hundreds of points of stimulation in his experiments, however we initially used six (2x3) and found that this was sufficient for a simple ball tracking task. Increasing the array size to 5x4 was sufficient for most people to bat a relatively slow moving ball as it approached them. We have tested over 100 subjects, ranging in age from 6 to adult, with the larger vibrotactile array.