Accessibility of assistive consumer devices is an emerging research area with potential to benefit both users with and without visual impairments. In this article, we discuss the research and evaluation of using a tactile button interface to control an iOS device's native VoiceOver Gesture navigations (Apple Accessibility, 2014). This research effort identified potential safety and accessibility issues for users trying to interact and control their touchscreen mobile iOS devices while traveling independently. Furthermore, this article discusses the participatory design process in creating a solution that aims to solve issues in utilizing a tactile button interface in a novel device. The overall goal of this study is to enable visually impaired white cane users to access their mobile iOS device's capabilities navigation aids more safely and efficiently on the go.

Students who are visually impaired make up a population with unique needs for learning. Some tools have been developed to support these needs in the classroom. One such tool, the Graph and Number line Input and Exploration software (GNIE), was developed by the Georgia Institute of Technology Sonification Lab. GNIE was deployed for use in a middle school math classroom at the Georgia Academy for the Blind (GAB) for 2 years starting in fall 2012. We interviewed the middle school math teacher throughout the deployment to learn about the challenges faced when teaching: lesson planning, execution, and review. We also observed how these changed when using GNIE compared to traditional teaching materials. During these 2 years, we conducted interviews and focus groups with students to learn about their attitudes toward tactile graphs compared to auditory graphs. With these in mind, we present lessons learned from the use of GNIE in a real-world classroom and implications for design of software to aid graphical learning for students with vision impairments.

A computerized task could be completed by predicting the location of a moving target or by choosing several stationary targets. In a fitness-relevant condition, this task was presented to participants in terms of hunting and gathering food necessary for survival. In four experiments, there was no evidence that male and female participants differed in terms of their tendency to complete the task in these two ways. In three of the experiments, performance in the fitness-relevant condition was compared to performance in a control condition in which the task was presented as a computer game with no reference to hunting or gathering. No evidence for an effect of fitness relevance was found. These results challenge the idea that sex differences in spatial cognition are related to the sexual differentiation of foraging behavior during human history. They also suggest limitations on the role of fitness-relevant processing of information (“survival processing”) on cognitive performance.

In this book researchers and students will find a wealth of useful information about driver acceptance across various technologies and vehicles types. Books with many contributing authors sometimes lack a good flow between all the moving parts and different voices. The editors of this book should be commended because it reads as if it is the perspective of a singular voice. Early chapters build the foundation needed to understand subsequent chapters. Regan, Horberry, and Stevens summarize scientific and practical knowledge regarding driver acceptance of new technologies and automotive systems. Vehicle safety technologies are highlighted, with emphasis on advanced driver assistance systems. Although specific technologies are addressed in the book, I found most useful the framework for evaluating driver acceptance. This framework is highly flexible and robust, which is greatly needed with the introduction of new technologies. The book has six parts. One part discusses various theories and models of driver acceptance, including such topics as sociopsychological factors that influence acceptability of intelligent transport systems and the influence of driver feedback to automated monitoring and mentoring systems. The editors propose a common definition of driver acceptance to ensure that comparisons between studies can be made. Another part in the book describes tools and methods to measure driver acceptance. The authors of these chapters suggest several methodologies to gauge driver acceptance, such as self-reported measures, performance measures, and physiological measures. Although they suggest the best approach to measure driver acceptance may be to use multiple tools and techniques, the key is to operationalize acceptance prior to conducting any measurements. I’m a huge fan of case studies, and the book doesn’t disappoint in this area. Learning new concepts can be somewhat of a dry read without practical examples, so it’s helpful to see how the concepts presented in the book are used in practice. It seems natural that the case studies would be skewed toward passenger cars, as this is the primary target audience. Although the book contains a case study on motorcycles and industrial equipment, trucks and other heavy vehicles are largely ignored. The book’s fifth part describes tools and techniques to optimize driver acceptance, with the main theme being that optimizing technology use is best done by understanding the broader organizational context (organizational culture, work goals, skill sets, etc.) in which the technology will be used. The sixth part summarizes the previous chapters. In summary, the editors assert that consensus on the definition of driver acceptance is much needed to make greater progress in driver interactions with vehicle technologies. After agreement on this definition is accomplished, human factors/ ergonomics professionals and other researchers can tackle additional issues, such as individual differences with respect to acceptance of new in-vehicle technologies. Jeffrey Hickman, PhD, is a group leader in the Center for Truck and Bus Safety at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute. His primary areas of research include community-wide (large-scale) applications of behavior-based safety, self-management, and organizational culture change techniques, as well as assessing driver behavior, fatigue, work/ rest cycles, and driver distraction in commercial motor operations.

Displaying multiple variables or data sets within a single sonification has been identified as a challenge for the field of auditory display research. We discuss our recent study that evaluates the usability of a sonification that contains multiple variables presented in a way that encouraged perception across multiple auditory streams. We measured listener comprehension of weather sonifications that include the variables of temperature, humidity, wind speed, wind direction, and cloud cover. Listeners could accurately identify trends in five concurrent variables presented together in a single sonification. This demonstrates that it is indeed possible to include multiple variables together within an auditory stream and thus a greater number of variables within a sonification.

In this paper we address the lack of accessibility in fantasy sports for visually impaired users and discuss the accessible fantasy sports system that we have designed using auditory displays. Fantasy sports are a fun and social activity requiring users to make decisions about their fantasy teams, which use real athletes' weekly performance to gain points and compete against other users' fantasy teams. Fantasy players manage their teams by making informed decisions using statistics about real sports related data. These statistics are usually presented online in a spreadsheet layout, however online fantasy sports are usually inaccessible to screen readers due to the use of Flash on most sites. Our current system, described in this paper, utilizes auditory display techniques such as auditory alerts, earcons, spearcons, general text-to-speech, and auditory graphs to present sports statistics to visually impaired fantasy users. The current version of our system was designed based on feedback from current fantasy sports users during a series of think-aloud walkthroughs.

Regardless of presentation modality (visual, auditory, etc.), graphs often need to convey uncertainty about the data values. Visual graphs may use error bars or confidence intervals. How to convey uncertainty about the data in an auditory graph remains an issue. Fundamental questions need to be answered first, such as how much change in, say, pitch, represents a given level of uncertainty. Here we present the results of a study that validates the uncertainty-to-sound-parameter mappings that had been determined in a previous phase of the research. That earlier research utilized conceptual magnitude estimation to identify preferred auditory mappings and scalings for error and uncertainty [1]. The present study sought to evaluate and validate those mappings and scalings in an applied context. Participants listened to pairs of auditory stimuli, and reported which they felt more closely represented a given range of error. Results showed that participants selected the error scalings that had been identified in the prior research, over other higher or lower slope values. This supports the validity of the mappings and scalings, and also provides more support for the utility of the conceptual magnitude estimation procedure developed by Walker [2].

Five experiments are presented that examine observers' reports with a new tri-stable reversible figure using two measures of observers' experience with the figure: observers' initial percept upon figure presentation in the test period and the total number of reversals reported in the test period. Experiment 1 demonstrates the equiprobability of the three alternatives for the figure. Experiment 2 demonstrates the powerful effect of fixation location on observers' reported organization of the tri-stable figure. Experiment 3 demonstrates clear priming effects following brief presentation of particular components of the tri-stable figure. Experiment 4 demonstrates clear adaptation effects following prolonged presentation of the same components of the figure used in experiment 3 as well as the transient nature of this adaptation. Experiment 5 demonstrates observers' ability to "hold" each of the three percepts regardless of fixation location. The special sensitivity of the tri-stable figure to these manipulations even with naive subjects and small sample sizes is discussed, and the interplay of both bottom-up and top-down processes on figural reversal is emphasized.

Clear representation of uncertainty or error is crucial in graphs and other displays of data. Error bars are quite common in visual graphs, even though they are not necessarily well-designed, and often are not well understood, even by those who use them often (e.g., scientists, engineers). There has been little study of how to represent uncertainty in auditory graphs, such as those used increasingly by students and scientists with vision impairment. This study used conceptual magnitude estimation to determine how well different auditory dimensions (frequency, tempo) can represent error and uncertainty. The results will lead to more effective auditory displays of quantitative information and data.