Non-visual virtual interaction: Can Sensory Substitution generically increase the accessibility of Graphical virtual reality to the blind?

Most of the content of Graphical virtual environments is currently visual, severely limiting their accessibility to the blind population. While several steps improving this situation have been made in recent years they are mainly environment specific and there is still much more to be done. This is especially unfortunate as VR holds great potential for the blind, e.g., for safe orientation and learning. We suggest in this position paper that Visual-to-audio Sensory Substitution Devices (SSDs) can potentially increase their accessibility generically fashion by sonifying the on-screen content regardless of the specific environment while allowing the user to capitalize upon his experience from other use of the device such as in the real world. We will demonstrate the potential of this approach using several recent examples from literature and from our own work.