DEVELOPMENT OF TACTILE TONE SYSTEM

[Anchor Lead]

People with hearing problems will soon be able to enjoy music concerts. A team of Korean engineers developed a tactile tone system and tested it out on hearing-impaired people with a Korean traditional music concert.

[Pkg]

Hearing-impaired people wearing tactile tone system gear on their chests and hands enjoy a Korean traditional music concert. They feel the vibration and rhythm with the vest they’re wearing and the precise tone changes through the gloves. Although they cannot hear the sound of the performance, they can enjoy music instantly through the vibration.

[Soundbite] Song Chan-seop(Ulsan Resident (Grade 2 Hearing Impaired)) : "I realized that the vibrations or tactile sensations coincided with the beat. I was able to feel the music with my heart and appreciate it more."

The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute has studied this tactile tone system for more than five years. This is a user interface technology that converts frequency signals from music or sound into tactile patterns and delivers them to the skin through a device. The wearer can feel the tone changes in instruments by feeling the vibration of music through his or her body.

[Soundbite] Shin Seung-yong(Senior Researcher, Human Augmentation Lab, ETRI)) : "A tone is converted into a tactile location. The technology allows a user to follow the tonal changes as melodies."

ETRI plans to improve the performance of the tactile sensory device before distributing the tactile tone system to music performance venues and education facilities later this year.