• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.21 no.7
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• pp.745-754
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• 2018

Language is an essential tool for verbal and emotional communication among human beings, enabling them to engage in social interactions. Although a majority of hearing-impaired people can speak; however, they are unable to receive feedback on their pronunciation most of them can speak. However, they do not receive feedback on their pronunciation. This results in impaired communication owing to incorrect pronunciation, which causes difficulties in their social interactions. If hearing-impaired people could receive continuous feedback on their pronunciation and phonation through lip-reading training, they could communicate more effectively with people without hearing disabilities, anytime and anywhere, without the use of sign language. In this study, the mouth area is detected from videos of learners speaking monosyllabic words. The grayscale information of the detected mouth area is used to estimate a velocity vector using Optical Flow. This information is then quantified as feature values to classify vowels. Subsequently, a system is proposed that classifies monosyllables by algebraic computation of geometric feature values of lips using the characteristics of articulatory phonation. Additionally, the system provides feedback by evaluating the comparison between the information which is obtained from the sample categories and experimental results.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.189-199
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• 2016

Many implantable hearing aids are being developed as alternatives to conventional hearing aids which has inconveniences for use and social stigma that make hearing-impaired people avoid to wear it. Particularly, the fully-implantable middle ear hearing devices (F-IMEHD) are being actively studied for mixed or sensorineural hearing impaired people. In development of F-IMEHD, the most difficult problem is improving the performance of implantable microphone. Recently, Cho et al. have studied the tympanic membrane installed microphone which has better sensitivity and is easier to operate on patient than the microphone implanted under the skin. But, it may cause howling problem due to the feedback signal via oval window and ossicle chain from the transducer on round window in the middle ear cavity, therefore, a feedback canceller is necessary. In this paper, we designed NLMS (normalized least mean square) adaptive feedback canceller for F-IMEHD with tympanic membrane installed microphone and a transducer implemented at round window, and computer simulation was performed to verify its operation. The designed adaptive feedback canceller has a delay filter, a 64 point FIR fixed filter and a 8-tap adaptive FIR filter. Computer simulation of the feedback path is modeled by using the data obtained through human cadaver experiment.

• Journal of The Korea Institute of Healthcare Architecture
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.45-54
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• 2012

The Act of Disability Discrimination and Rights Restriction was enacted in 2008 states that all services including cultural and artistic activities should be fair and easily accessible for disabled. The aim of this study was to determine how to improve the facilities and services for the disabled in Theater and provide complementary guidelines for amenities designed for people with disabled. The conclusions identified through this study are as follows: 1) It should be installed pedestrian safe passage so that visitors could access from the entrance of the ground to the seat in the theater. 2) Disabled seats install in a position to Emergency evacuation for people with disabilities, and it is recommended that general seats are placed side by side with Disabled seats. 3) It is analyzed services for the visually impaired and hearing impaired are very poor. Therefore assistive devices and human services should be provided to the visually impaired and hearing impaired. 4) People with disabilities can participate in the show as the performers, so it should be provided reasonable accommodations such as access to the stage.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SC
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• v.45 no.5
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• pp.13-20
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• 2008

Although digital hearing aid algorithms have been developed to compensate hearing loss and to help hearing impaired people to communicate with others, digital hearing aid user still complain about difficulty of hearing the speech. The reason could be the quality of speech through digital hearing aid is insufficient to understand the speech caused by feedback, residual noise and etc. And another thing is masking effect among formants that makes sound quality low. In this study, we measured the masking characteristics of normal listeners and hearing impaired listeners having presbyacusis to confirm masking effect in speech itself. The experiment is composed of 5 tests; pure tone test, speech reception threshold (SRT) test, word recognition score (WRS) test, puretone masking test and speech masking test. In speech masking test, there are 25 speeches in each speech set. And log likelihood ratio (LLR) is introduced to evaluate the distortion of each speech objectively. As a result, the speech perception became lower by increasing the quantity of formant enhancement. And each enhanced speech in a speech set has statistically similar LLR, however speech perception is not. It means that acoustic masking effect rather than distortion influences speech perception. In actuality, according to the result of frequency analysis of the speech that people can not answer correctly, level difference between first formant and second formant is about 35dB, and it is similar to result of pure tone masking test(normal hearing subject:36.36dB, hearing impaired subject:32.86dB). Characteristics of masking effect is not similar between normal listeners and hearing impaired listeners. So it is required to check the characteristics of masking effect before wearing a hearing aid and to apply this characteristics to fitting.

• International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.284-288
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• 2021

Human-computer interaction is a discipline concerned with the design, evaluation, and implementation of interactive systems for human use. In this paper we suggest designing a smart deaf emergency application based on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) principles whereas nowadays everything around us is becoming smart, People already have smartphones, smartwatches, smart cars, smart houses, and many other technologies that offer a wide range of useful options. So, a smart mobile application using Text Telephone or TeleTYpe technology (TTY) has been proposed to help people with deafness or impaired hearing to communicate and seek help in emergencies. Deaf people find it difficult to communicate with people, especially in emergency status. It is stipulated that deaf people In all societies must have equal rights to use emergency services as other people. With the proposed application the deafness or impaired hearing can request help with one touch, and the location will be determined, also the user status will be sent to the emergency services through the application, making it easier to reach them and provide them with assistance. The application contains several classifications and emergency status (traffic, police, road safety, ambulance, fire fighting). The expected results from this design are interactive, experiential, efficient, and comprehensive features of human-computer interactive technology which may achieve user satisfaction.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.59 no.4
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• pp.831-840
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• 2010

In this paper, we propose a hearing impairment simulator considering reduced frequency selectivity and asymmetrical auditory filter of the hearing impaired, and we verified the reduced frequency selectivity and asymmetrical auditory filter affected in speech perception through experiments. The reduced frequency selectivity has made embodied by spectral smearing using LPC(linear prediction coding). The shapes of auditory filter are asymmetrical different with each center frequency. Hearing impaired person which has hearing loss was differently changed with that of normal hearing people and it has different value for speech of quality through auditory filter. The experiments confirmed subjective test and objective test. The subjective experiments are composed of 4 kinds of tests: pure tone test, SRT(speech reception threshold) test, and WRS(word recognition score) test without spectral smearing, and WRS test with spectral smearing. The experiment of the hearing impairment simulator was performed from 9 subjects who have normal ears. The amount of spectral smearing was controlled by LPC order. The asymmetrical auditory filter of proposed hearing impairment simulator was simulated and then some tests to estimate the filter's performance objectively were performed. The objective experiment as simulated auditory filter's performance evaluation method used PESQ(perceptual evaluation of speech quality) and LLR(log likelihood ratio) for speech through auditory filter. The processed speech was evaluated objective speech quality and distortion using PESQ and LLR value. When hearing loss processed, PESQ and LLR value have big difference according to asymmetrical auditory filter in hearing impairment simulator.

• Journal of information and communication convergence engineering
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.19-22
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• 2010

A finger language helping hearing impaired people in communication A sign language helping hearing impaired people in communication is not popular to ordinary healthy people. In this paper, we propose a method for real-time sign language recognition from a vision system using color information and fuzzy clustering system. We use YCbCr color model and canny mask to decide the position of hands and the boundary lines. After extracting regions of two hands by applying 8-directional contour tracking algorithm and morphological information, the system uses FCM in classifying sign language signals. In experiment, the proposed method is proven to be sufficiently efficient.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.47-58
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• 2006

People tend to control their speech rate to help those with listening problems such as hearing impaired people. The aim of this study was to investigate effects of speech rate on the sentence perception by 10 adults with cochlear implantation. The sample speech included 42 sentences at normal, slow, and very slow speed focusing on the overall duration, vowel or pause duration. The subjects listened to the speech and wrote down what they heard. Each correct syllable of the content words in the sentence was counted to obtain the score. Partial points were given to the incomplete syllables. Results of this study were as follows: 1. The changes of speech rate had some influence on the sentence perception score by the cochlear implanted people. 2. In slow pause condition, the controlled speech rate had a positive effect on the perception score.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.27-34
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• 2009

Hearing impaired person's hearing loss has personally various shape, so existing symmetrical auditory filter of frequency band method wasn't properly simulated the hearing impaired person's various hearing loss shape. The shapes of auditory filter are asymmetrical different with each center frequency and each input level. Hearing impaired person which has hearing loss was differently changed with that of normal hearing people and it has different value for speech of quality through auditory filter. In this study, the asymmetrical auditory filter was simulated and then some tests to estimate the filter's performance objectively were performed. The experiment as simulated auditory filter's performance evaluation method used perceptual evaluation of speech quality (PESQ) and log likelihood ratio (LLR) for speech through auditory filter. In the test, processed speech was evaluated objective speech quality and distortion using PESQ and LLR value. When hearing loss processed, PESQ and LLR value have big difference between symmetrical and asymmetrical auditory filter. It means that the difference of the shape auditory filter may affect to speech quality. Especially, when hearing loss existed, auditory filter changing according to asymmetrical shape for each center frequency affected to perceive speech quality of the hearing impaired.

• Electronics and Telecommunications Trends
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.74-82
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• 2024

Music is a means of emotional expression and self-expression. In addition, it allows to interact with others and communicate with the world. Music may be considered as inaccessible for people with hearing impairment, who are sometimes discriminated from the music community. We explore trends in various technologies and research that enable everyone to access and enjoy music through experiences that leverage new and innovative technological approaches and bridge the gap between people with and without hearing impairment. Various aspects of haptic systems are being studied, but most of them are performance-oriented and focus only on technical functions. As research matures, more detailed and new studies that converge with various senses are being attempted. These studies will likely evolve into influential research areas that can positively affect the lives of people in terms of accessibility and inclusion by providing detailed functions and stimuli to specific users, including those with hearing impairment.