Projects

Audiom

Audiom is a tool that allows blind and visually impaired individuals to view maps completely in audio. It is a web component and can be embedded into any webpage, similar to Google Maps. It allows non-visual access to route, landmark, and survey knowledge, which is the critical information needed for navigation.

Tracking a target in depth with central field loss

Bilateral field loss due to maculopathy creates a scotoma that extends in depth — a volume scotoma. Morevoer the size of the scotoma depends on whether observers turn their eyes to track a target as it comes closer. This project investigates how the volume scotoma affects the ability to track oncoming targets in these individuals, and in controls with a simulated volume scotoma.

Reverberant Auditory Scene Analysis

The world is rich in sounds and their echoes from reflecting surfaces, making acoustic reverberation a ubiquitous part of everyday life. We usually think of reverberation as a nuisance to overcome (it makes understanding speech or locating sound sources harder), but it also carries useful information, acting as a signature of the space it fills. Reverberation can tell us how big a room is, where we are inside it, and whether there are objects nearby. This has important implications not only for auditory spatial perception in typical individuals, but also in people with sensory loss. Sound…