Haptics in audio described movies

Similar to closed captioning for people who cannot hear, Audio Description (AD) in movies correspond to a secondary audio track describing events that are otherwise visually dominant. To aid people who are visually impaired or blind in understanding the happenings of a movie, the narrator describes the emotions, expressions, and actions presented in a movie scene, among many other details. A major drawback in AD is the necessity to comprehend an overloaded auditory channel. Also, the lack of time available between dialogues leaves certain information not described. By incorporating haptics with AD, we intend to employ a multi-modal approach in an attempt to make movies more accessible for people who are visually impaired. In this demonstration, participants will experience tactile cues for a) the relative position of two actors in a scene through our novel vibrotactile belt, and b) their facial expressions through our novel vibrotactile glove.