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Interactive virtual environments for blind children : usability and cognition

It is known that blind children represent spatial environments with cognitive difficulty. This can be decreased if they are exposed to interactive experiences with acoustic stimuli delivered through spatialized sound software. The aim of this research was to implement a field study to detect and analyze cognitive and usability issues involved in the use of an aural environment and the issues of representing navigable structures with only spatial sound. The research was implemented by exposing the children to a spatialized acoustic environment in a challenge-action game software and complementing this with a kit of cognitive representation tasks, which includes corporal exercises and experiences with the interaction with concrete representation materials such as sand, clay, styrofoam, and Lego® bricks. The cognitive kit also included learning activities to represent the perceived environment, the organization of the space, and problem solving related to the interactions with the software. The usability testing of the environment was an explicit issue in the research by using both qualitative and quantitative methods including interviews, survey methods, logging actual use, still pictures, and video tape recording session analysis. The results of the study revealed that blind children can achieve the construction of mental structures rendered with only spatialized sound and that spatial imagery is not purely visual by nature, but can be constructed and transferred through spatialized sound delivered by a computer software. Our hypothesis was fully confirmed revealing that each blind child passes four clear cognitive stages in their interaction with the sound environment and performing cognitive tasks: entry, exploration, adaptation, and appropriation.