Transmission of acoustic information of percussion instruments through tactile sensation using air-jet stimulation for hearing impaired person

Abstract

We are trying to transfer acoustic information to hearing impaired persons through tactile sensation using air-jet stimuli. We focused on psychological tonal impressions given when hearing various sounds, and examined whether these impressions could be given by air-jet stimuli. In order to replace percussion sounds with air-jets, we connected the acoustic characteristics to the parameters of the air-jet stimuli. Relationships between the acoustic characteristics of percussion instruments and the physical characteristics of air-jets have been found by analysis of psychological impressions given when hearing percussion instrument sounds and perceiving air-jet stimuli. As a result, transmitting musical information was possible. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.