University of Maryland

Head-Mounted Display Visualizations to Support Sound Awareness for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing

These head-mounted displays help deaf and hard of hearing users visualize the position sound is coming from, which hearing aids and cochlear implants are not able to do.

For people with hearing loss, hearing aids and cochlear implants can improve sound recognition, but cannot indicate where someone a sound is coming from, a necessary cue for interpreting visual signals like gestures and lip movements. In this paper, the authors evaluate a number of visualizations to help deaf and hard of hearing users localize sounds and, based on their analysis, develop a real-time prototype using Google Glass.

The full article is available here.