Teaching the blind to find their way by playing video games

Abstract

Computer based video games are receiving great interest as a means to learn and acquire new skills. As a novel approach to teaching navigation skills in the blind, we have developed Audio-based Environment Simulator (AbES); a virtual reality environment set within the context of a video game metaphor. Despite the fact that participants were naïve to the overall purpose of the software, we found that early blind users were able to acquire relevant information regarding the spatial layout of a previously unfamiliar building using audio based cues alone. This was confirmed by a series of behavioral performance tests designed to assess the transfer of acquired spatial information to a large-scale, real-world indoor navigation task. Furthermore, learning the spatial layout through a goal directed gaming strategy allowed for the mental manipulation of spatial information as evidenced by enhanced navigation performance when compared to an explicit route learning strategy. We conclude that the immersive and highly interactive nature of the software greatly engages the blind user to actively explore the virtual environment. This in turn generates an accurate sense of a large-scale three-dimensional space and facilitates the learning and transfer of navigation skills to the physical world.

Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1. Virtual rendering of a physical environment represented in the AbES software.

A) architectural floor plan of an existing two story building with 23 rooms, 2 stairwells and 3 exits. For simplicity, only the first floor is shown. B) In gamer mode, the player (yellow icon) navigates through the virtual environment using auditory cues to locate hidden jewels (blue squares) and avoid being caught by chasing monsters (red icons). C) In directed navigation mode, the user learns the spatial layout of the building and the relative location of the rooms using predetermined paths (shown in yellow) and with the assistance of a facilitator.

Figure 2. Comparing performance on navigation tasks between gamers and directed navigator learning strategy.

A) High success on correct paths taken (%) was observed in both groups for room-to-room navigation. B) Average time taken to navigate to target (sec) was also similar in both groups. C) Results of drop off task reveals an advantage for gamers. Paths chosen were scored such that the shortest route possible to exit the building from a given starting point received a maximum of 3 points, 2 for next closest exit, 1 for the longest, 0 for unsuccessful). Gamers showed an advantage over directed navigators in that they were more likely to choose the shortest path on the drop off task (indicated by higher average point score). Error bars indicate S.E.M., n.s.  =  not significant. * = p