Brain activation during virtual and real-world mobility tasks with single and multimodal sensory input provided by an assistive navigational device for visually impaired people

This paper presents an experiment performed at University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest, Romania that aims to study brain activation during virtual and real-world mobility tasks with audio, haptic and multimodal (audio & haptic) sensory input provided by the Sound of Vision navigational system dedicated to the visually impaired people. Two scenes have been used for the study: one in which the user is required to identify how many objects are in the scene / which one is the closest / which one is the widest and one where he has to navigate from the starting position to a sound target position while avoiding obstacles. Three visually impaired subjects participated in our experiments. The results showed the efficiency of the system in both virtual and real-world scenarios, as the users adapted easily to the device, experienced activation in the occipital areas and recorded low stress levels, independently of the sensory modality employed. Thus, we conclude that the audio, haptic and the combination of audio & haptic input modalities are efficient for safe and reliable assistive navigation.