Communication via the auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic senses

The way in which messages are coded into sensory stimuli affects the speed and accuracy with which the messages are transmitted to a human. This paper describes experiments which were conducted in order to determine some of the properties of favorable coding schemes. The experiments showed that, in general, the stimuli should vary along many dimensions, and should assume one of two coordinate values along each dimension. When there are only two allowable coordinates per dimension, the probability of error is often independent of the actual coordinate values, provided the distance between the coordinates is well above threshold at low stimulus rates. The results of these experiments were used as a guide in coding letters of the alphabet into easily identifiable auditory and tactile stimuli. The reading rates for various coding schemes were then measured. In one code, each letter of the alphabet was represented by a unique auditory or tactile stimulus. After only
12
hours of practice, subjects were able to read English text chosen from several sources at a rate of
20
words per minute. Included in the paper is a description of a tactile-kinesthetic sensory display, and some suggestions for further research.