[nabs-l] Article: Audio-based virtual gaming aims to help theblind navigate, CNet News, April 1, 2013

[Kirt Manwaring]

Jedi,
  Much as I love and depend on structured discovery, I'm not sure this
is quite the same thing.  I'll grant you that they probably use
similar processes in the brain, though.
  Now, if only the hospital or k-mart from the game Swamp were
buildings I needed to go to in real life.  :)  (audiogame hobbiests
probably know what I'm talking about, *grin*)

On 4/2/13, Brandon Keith Biggs <brandonkeithbiggs at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
> It is the special map the users build based on the small environment the
> game has. The monsters and jewels are not necessary, but help cement the
> directions in the player's mind.
> I'm not sure why they are doing this now as I've been telling people that
> playing games has helped me considerably in developing my mapping skills and
>
> if I had a game for a place I wanted to travel, I would have considerably
> more knowledge of a place than I would if I heard directions from someone,
> saw a map or even walked it.
> I'm excited they are heading toward this and hope the next generation of GPS
>
> technology will include interactive environment's.
> Thanks,
>
> Brandon Keith Biggs
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jedi Moerke
> Sent: Tuesday, April 02, 2013 4:51 AM
> To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
> Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Article: Audio-based virtual gaming aims to help
> theblind navigate, CNet News, April 1, 2013
>
> I have a strong suspicion that the videogame in another itself is not what
> necessarily responsible for increasing success of navigation. I think the
> video game activates some cognitive processes that traditional instruction
> does not. I suspect it's the same phenomenon that works instruction
> discovery. I don't know that for fact, but it's a gas. This message was
> typed in a hurry using Siri, so please forgive me in advance for grammatical
>
> errors.
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Apr 1, 2013, at 11:21 PM, "Humberto Avila"
> <avila.bert.humberto2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Link:
>> http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57577323-76/audio-based-virtual-gaming-aim
>> s-to-help-the-blind-navigate/?part=rss&subj=news&tag=title
>>
>> Text: Audio-based virtual gaming aims to help the blind navigate
>> Using only audio-based cues within the context of a video game metaphor,
>> blind users in a study out of Harvard are able to explore a building's
>> layout.
>> Elizabeth Armstrong Moore
>>
>> Blind players were better able to navigate the building in real life than
>> their counterparts who'd been introduced to it by walking through it.
>> (Credit: Journal of Visualized Experiments)
>> A video game that uses audio cues and computer-generated building layouts
>> has proven to be better at improving a blind person's spatial awareness
>> of
>> that place than does actually walking them through it, according to new
>> research out of Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Eye and Ear
>> Infirmary.
>> The findings could have implications for how visually impaired people --
>>
>> and
>> possibly those without impairments -- best learn to navigate unknown
>> territory.
>> "It is a tool to build a map of a place you have never been to before,"
>> Lotfi Merabet, the neuroscientist whose team developed the software used
>> in
>> the study (which appears in the Journal of Visualized Experiments), told
>> Reuters. "The video game not only allows you to build a map in your mind,
>>
>> it
>> allows you to interact with it mentally in a way that you wouldn't be
>> able
>> to if you were taught explicitly by walking through it."
>> Merabet sees the video game as an important step toward revolutionizing
>> assisted tech for the visually impaired, of which there are some 285
>> million
>> globally.
>> His team tested the game on teens to 45-year-olds who were either
>> congenitally blind or had lost their sight. Some participants played the
>> game, using audio cues to find hidden jewels in a building that in real
>> life
>> is a center for the blind in Newton, Mass. There was an added incentive:
>> They had to remove those jewels from the building without being caught
>> by,
>> you guessed it, monsters lurking in dark corners. Other participants got
>> to
>> actually walk the building itself to learn the lay of the land.
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> nabs-l mailing list
>> nabs-l at nfbnet.org
>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nabs-l_nfbnet.org
>> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
>> nabs-l:
>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nabs-l_nfbnet.org/loneblindjedi%40samobile.net
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> nabs-l mailing list
> nabs-l at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nabs-l_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> nabs-l:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nabs-l_nfbnet.org/brandonkeithbiggs%40gmail.com
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> nabs-l mailing list
> nabs-l at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nabs-l_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> nabs-l:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nabs-l_nfbnet.org/kirt.crazydude%40gmail.com
>