Making Blind People Autonomous in the Exploration of Tactile Models: A Feasibility Study

Blind people are typically excluded from equal access to the world's visual culture, thus being often unable to achieve concrete benefits of art education and enjoyment. This is particularly true when dealing with paintings due to their bi-dimensional nature impossible to be explored using the sense of touch. This may be partially overcome by translating paintings into tactile bas-reliefs. However, evidence from recent studies suggests that the mere tactile exploration is often not sufficient to fully understand and enjoy bas-reliefs. The integration of different sensorial stimuli proves to dramatically enrich the haptic exploration. Moreover, granting blind people the possibility of autonomously accessing and enjoying pictorial works of art, is undoubtedly a good strategy to enrich their exploration. Accordingly, the main aim of the present work is to assess the feasibility of a new system consisting of a physical bas-relief, a vision system tracking the blind user's hands during “exploration” and an audio system providing verbal descriptions. The study, supported by preliminary tests, demonstrates the effectiveness of such an approach capable to transform a frustrating, bewildering and negative experience (i.e. the mere tactile exploration) into one that is liberating, fulfilling, stimulating and fun.