Different performance on auditory discrimination between sighted and blind individuals

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine differences in auditory discrimination ability between sighted and blind individuals under different surrounding sound and noise conditions. In this experiment, an auditorywords-perception task was manipulated to investigate performance of visually impaired and sighted individuals on the discrimination of aurally presented words within different conditions. The results showed that sighted individuals have a 0.8 of accuracy on their performance with a 25% increment necessary in sound level. On the other hand, blind individuals have a 0.7 of accuracy with a 15% increment in sound level. These results also can provide industrial designer with guidance for interface designs for products intended for the visually impaired.