Do you see what I see?: designing a sensory substitution device to access non-verbal modes of communication

The inability to access non-verbal cues is a setback for people who are blind or visually impaired. A visual-to-auditory Sensory Substitution Device (SSD) may help improve the quality of their lives by transforming visual cues into auditory cues. In this paper, we describe the design and development of a robust and real-time SSD called iFEPS -- improved Facial Expression Perception through Sound. The implementation of the iFEPS evolved over time through a participatory design process. We conducted both subjective and objective experiments to quantify the usability of the system. Evaluation with 14 subjects (7 blind + 7 blind-folded) shows that the users were able to perceive the facial expressions in most of the time. In addition, the overall subjective usability of the system was found to be scoring 4.02 in a 5 point Likert scale.