Eye tracking in coloured image scenes represented by ambisonic fields of musical instrument sounds

Abstract

We present our recent project on visual substitution by Ambisonic 3D-sound fields. Ideally, our system should be used by blind or visually impaired subjects having already seen. The original idea behind our targeted prototype is the use of an eye tracker and musical instrument sounds encoding coloured pixels. The role of the eye tracker is to activate the process of attention inherent in the vision and to restore by simulation the mechanisms of central and peripheral vision. Moreover, we advocate the view that cerebral areas devoted to the integration of information will play a role by rebuilding a global image of the environment. Finally, the role of colour itself is to help subjects distinguishing coloured objects or perceiving textures, such as sky, walls, grass and trees, etc ... © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.