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Biomedical subjects

W R Thurlow

Publications and source records attributed to W R Thurlow.

18 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1980

Head tip, cue to object elevation and location: implications for the blind.

Sighted subjects can accurately direct a light-beam source mounted on their head to the position of their hand on a vertical or horizontal scale by tipping their head in the up-down dimension. A blind person might be trained to utilize head-tip cues for location of objects in space. If he scanned his environment vertically (by tipping his head) with a horizontal inear array of photosensitive elements, presence of an object at a given position and elevation could be signalled to him by a small light attached to the object.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed1975

Localization of two noise sources overlapping in time.

The accuracy of localization of two independent, wide-band noise sources, overlapping in time, was measured. Subjects given preliminary practice had little difficulty in localizing when sources separated by 55 degrees were located in front of them or in back of them, with one source 10 degrees from the midline. But when sources were at the side of the subject, perception that there were two sources present tended to improve significantly as time between onset of the sounds was increased to 100 msec. Once a sound was perceived to be present, it was localized with fairly high accuracy.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Studies on hand-held visual communication device for the deaf and speech-impaired I. Visual display window size.

Messages were presented which moved from right to left along an electronic alphabetic display which was varied in "window" size from 4 through 32 letter spaces. Deaf subjects signed the messages they perceived. Relatively few errors were made even at the highest rate of presentation, which corresponded to a typing rate of 60 words/min. It is concluded that many deaf persons can make effective use of a small visual display. A reduced cost is then possible for visual communication instruments for these people through reduced display size. Deaf subjects who can profit from a small display can be located by a sentence test administered by tape recorder which drives the display of the communication device by means of the standard code of the deaf teletype network.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Studies on hand-held visual communication device for the deaf and speech-impaired 2. Keyboard design.

Experiments with keyboard arrangements of letters show that simple alphabetic letter-key sequences with 4 to 5 letters in a row lead to most rapid visual search performance. Such arrangements can be used on keyboards operated by the index finger of one hand. Arrangement of letters in words offers a promising alternative because these arrangements can be readily memorized and can result in small interletter distances on the keyboard for frequently occurring letter sequences. Experiments on operation of keyboards show that a space or shift key operated by the left hand (which also holds the communication device) results in faster keyboard operation than when space or shift keys on the front of the keyboard (operated by right hand) are used. Special problems of the deaf-blind are discussed. Keyboard arrangements are investigated, and matching tactual codes are suggested.

Blindness↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Understanding continuity effects with complex stimuli.

When a low-intensity stimulus A is alternated in time with a high-intensity stimulus B of relatively short duration, stimulus A is heard as continuous. This "continuity" effect is shown to occur even when the B stimulus is a series of sharp pulses at one rate and the A stimulus is a series of pulses at another rate which must produce a very different neural temporal pattern. Simple substitution models of the continuity effect are thus shown to be inadequate. A model is presented to make various types of continuity effects more understandable.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Further study of existence regions for the "ventriloquism effect".

The "ventriloquism effect" refers to the perception of speech sounds as coming from a direction other than their true direction, due to the influence of visual stimuli from an apparent speaker. In these experiments, the ventriloquism effect was observed for conditions in which the subject turned his eyes 30 degrees to watch a speaker on a TV monitor. It was found that (1) the ventriloquism effect could be obtained for (hidden) auditory sources 20-30 degrees from the position of the TV speaker; (2) a strong ventriloquism effect could be obtained for an auditory stimulus at an angel of 150 degrees right of the subject's straight ahead when the TV source (toward which the subject's gaze was directed) was at 30 degrees right of straight ahead. Lesser effects were obtained for sound sources at 130 and 170 degrees right of the subject's straight ahead.

Cues↗