Phonemic-based Tactile Supplement to Lipreading: Initial Findings on Consonant Identification

We present the initial results of a 7-channel tactile aid worn on the forearm, which was designed as a supplement to lipreading. Consonant confusion patterns through lipreading alone were first assessed in one non-native English speaker with profound deafness. A phonemic-based tactile coding scheme was then developed to disambiguate sets of two or more speech sounds that appear similar on the lips (i.e., visemes). After a period of training with the tactile aid in combination with lipreading, scores for identification of a set of 22 consonants were substantially higher for the aided lipreading condition (74%-correct) than through lipreading alone (44%-correct). This performance compares favorably to that reported in the literature for spectral-based tactile aids. These initial results demonstrate the potential of a phonemic-based approach to a tactile supplement of lipreading.