ERIC Number: EJ852285
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2009
Pages: 21
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0264-6196
EISSN: N/A
Auditory Discriminations of Typographic Attributes of Documents by Students with Blindness
Argyropoulos, Vassilios S.; Sideridis, Georgios D.; Kouroupetroglou, Georgios; Xydas, Gerasimos
British Journal of Visual Impairment, v27 n3 p183-203 2009
The general purpose of the present study was to test the effectiveness of various psycho-acoustic manipulations for the understanding of specific information (typographic attributes such as bold and italic) which was included in texts by individuals with and without blindness. Thirty blind and thirty sighted students participated and were asked to distinguish a number of controlled conditions of auditory components, as well as to express their preferences and opinions on the prosody of the selected acoustic features (pitch, volume and speed of the synthetic speech). Findings indicated that there were significant interactions between groups and experimental conditions across variables. The outcomes of the present study provided a rough assessment of the auditory means that may be conducive to the understanding of the specific typographic attributes. Based on these findings Text-to-Speech systems can deliver such information with all the appropriate auditory prosody in order to facilitate blind students' memorization and comprehension and enhance inclusion. (Contains 2 tables, 3 figures, and 2 notes.)
Descriptors: Artificial Speech, Augmentative and Alternative Communication, Blindness, Acoustics, Assistive Technology, Auditory Discrimination, Intonation, Memorization, Listening Comprehension, Foreign Countries, Braille
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Greece
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A