Webcam enabled system lets blind see emotions via tactile sensation

It’s a hard fact that we believe only what we see. But imagine a blind person’s life – they are compelled to believe as much as they are told. Not any more, a blind person’s life may be in for a transformation with the thesis project at Umeå University in Sweden. Under the project a Braille codification for emotions has been devised, which uses a tactile display and a web cam to assist the blind “see" emotion as they are displayed on a subject's face. The visual information of subject's facial emotions is delivered through tactile sensation on the forearm sleeve as a gesture is carried out into the Web cam. The person has to adapt to the tactile sensation and understand what is what – and to make this simple for the user the researchers are working on easiest ways to convey facial and non-verbal cues as data to computers, which could read and translate into tactile data. It’s time before some applications can be worked out for the project, but for me it sure is a great concept.

blind see emotions

Via: ScienceDaily/PopSci