Design of a Multi-Channel Device for Conveying Vibrotactile Information and Vibrotactile Threshold Experiment

Listening to music is an experience that can generate great pleasure and enhance the mood. While some people view music listening as a pivotal part in their everyday existence, others are not so fortunate as to be able to enjoy music due to severe hearing impairment. The cochlear implant is a great...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Elvar Atli Ævarsson 1980-
Other Authors: Háskóli Íslands
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1946/37115
Description
Summary:Listening to music is an experience that can generate great pleasure and enhance the mood. While some people view music listening as a pivotal part in their everyday existence, others are not so fortunate as to be able to enjoy music due to severe hearing impairment. The cochlear implant is a great technological and biomedical achievement that has restored hearing in hundreds of thousands of deaf and hard-ofhearing individuals over the past decades. However, the limited spectral resolution that the implant delivers to the brain results in many recipients describing their music listening experience as disappointing. This thesis describes work done for the ACUTE: ACoUstic and Tactile Engineering group at the University of Iceland, as part of their long-term objective of augmenting the musical enjoyment of cochlear implant recipients by applying an additional information stream to the skin. A multi-channel hardware system for high definition vibrotactile feedback was designed and built. It is intended for in-lab psychophysical experiments in the development of a multi-channel vibrotactile display, to be used alongside musical playback. A vibrotactile threshold experiment was designed and conducted, the purpose of which was to map the vibrotactile threshold of the wrist using the newly designed hardware system and the parallel vibration actuators of choice. Results were compared to older studies and it was found that when vibration is applied parallel to the skin, the perceived frequency is twice that of the signal frequency. Tónlist getur haft mikil og jákvæð áhrif á heilsu og líðan fólks. Sumt fólk upplifir hlustun á tónlist sem mikilvægan hlut í tilveru sinni á meðan aðrir njóta ekki þeirra forréttinda að geta notið þess að hlusta á tónlist, sökum heyrnarskerðingar eða heyrnarleysis. Kuðungsígræðsla er afar öflugt og mikilvægt afrek á sviði tækni- og heilbrigðisvísinda og hefur veitt hundruðum þúsunda einstaklinga heyrn síðustu áratugi. Hins vegar skerðir kuðungsígræðslutækið tíðniupplausnina sem miðlast til ...