Active perception with sensory substitution devices: The role of exploratory movements and sensory modalities in affordances perception

• Autores: Juan Carlos de Paz Ríos
• Directores de la Tesis: David Travieso García (dir. tes.), David Jacobs (dir. tes.)
• Lectura: En la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid ( España ) en 2023
• Idioma: español
• Número de páginas: 218
• Títulos paralelos:
  • Percepción activa con dispositivos de sustitución sensorial: el rol de los movimientos exploratorios y las modalidades sensoriales en la percepción de affordances
• Enlaces
  • Tesis en acceso abierto en: Biblos-e Archivo
• Resumen

  • The main road of this doctoral thesis is to study whether affordances in the environment can be perceived through sensory substitution devices (SSDs). SSDs are electronic devices that enhance the capabilities of perceptual systems (typically touch and/or hearing) to provide access to information normally detected through vision. For this reason, SSDs are primarily aimed at people with visual disabilities, although they have also proven useful in low visibility contexts. The objective of these SSDs is to provide users with tools that, through their active exploration, allow them to access crucial environmental information to perform everyday tasks such as object recognition, navigating and avoiding obstacles, and more. In this thesis, I have focused on a very specific type of task: the perception of affordances. In other words, it will be studied whether it is possible to perceive the possibilities for action offered by the environment based on the user's physical and behavioral properties using an SSD. Affordances are framed within the ecological theory of perception, which assumes that these opportunities for action are not dependent on sensory modalities and can only be perceived through active exploration. Through five experimental studies (eight experiments in total) involving 287 participants, it was demonstrated that individuals using SSDs were capable of perceiving pass-ability through openings, object grasp-ability, posture control, and navigation while avoiding obstacles. Additionally, several of these tasks were performed using different sensory modalities, revealing intermodal functional equivalence. In all these experiments, the participants' movements and trajectories were recorded and analyzed using different motion capture systems. The results showed that the exploration patterns themselves aided both in detecting and generating information. Although it may still seem far off, advancements in technology, the use of perceptual theories that emphasize the active role of the user, the identification of crucial information for performing certain tasks, and how we should stimulate with SSDs to facilitate access to that information, bring us closer to the ultimate goal of sensory substitution devices: the widespread use of SSDs by people with visual disabilities in daily live activities