An Enhanced Musical Experience for the Deaf: Design and Evaluation of a Music Display and a Haptic Chair

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Summary

In An Enhanced Musical Experience for the Deaf: Design and Evaluation of a Music Display and a Haptic Chair, the researchers explained a new way for the deaf to have a fulfilling musical experience. Music is not only established through the audible sounds; it also manifests itself through vibration of the floor and walls, visual effects, and the movements of the artists (in live settings). While the deaf cannot hear the actual sounds of the music, they look to other ways to enjoy music. The researchers looked to develop a system in which the deaf can enjoy the vibration and visual phenomenon of music and get as close to actually hearing the music as they can. They found that about half of deaf people have never had any sort of musical experience before, and so they thought to introduce these types of people to a new form of entertainment and musical fulfillment.

The system consists of two parts: a visual system that translates pitch, tone, tempo, and other qualities into visual pictures, and a haptic chair that vibrates with the beat and intensity of the music. The visual system took the MIDI representation of the music, and converted it to visual form using XML and Flash (ActionScript 3.0). Different instruments were different colors, and as they played notes, different visual cues appeared on the screen. The haptic chair was a chair from IKEA with 2 different contact speakers attached to it. The user would sit in the chair with almost all of their body in contact with it, and as the music played, they would feel the vibrations throughout the chair.

After doing user studies with different types of music, most of the deaf participants said they felt no difference than actually listening to the music (how they imagined it). Many said that if they could hook their own music up to it, change the visual styles of the display, and use a hearing aid in conjunction, they would very much like to have the system for their home.

Discussion

I thought this was really interesting cause I have always felt there is so much emotion in music. Lots of emotion comes from the performer: their facial expressions, their body movements, the reaction of the audience....all of that is visual. And having a visualizer that shows the frequencies and notes, along with a chair that vibrates in place? That seems pretty close, or as least as close as you can get, to actually listening to music. This technology is really promising if they can develop it and manufacture it cheaply, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was on the market soon, targeted not only towards the deaf, but also towards those that can hear but want to experience their music in a different way.