Testing Tactile Aids With Blind Subjects

Part of paid clinical trials in Newark, Delaware.

Sponsor
University of Delaware
Study ID
NCT06237829
Status
Recruiting
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Conditions

  • Blindness
  • Vision, Low

Eligibility Criteria

Sex
ALL
Age
16 Years - N/A
Healthy Volunteers
Accepted

Interventions

  • Single bump acuity — BEHAVIORAL
    Investigators will design bumps of varying heights, spacings, diameters, and bump shapes (rounded top, flat top, angled top) which give a precise amount of mechanical stimulus to the finger. Subjects will be asked if they could notice a bump on the surface and instructed to make the judgment quickly (\<2 seconds). A psychometric curve, with a standard braille bump serving as the positive, \~100% success rate control, will be constructed
  • Optimal spacing between bumps — BEHAVIORAL
    Investigators will fabricate and characterize two bumps of varying widths (ranging from 150 μm to 3 times the bump width, based on fabrication resolution available in commercial tactile aid machines). Subjects will be asked to run their finger across the two bumps (two bumps always form a line, so investigators do not need to ask subjects to orient their fingers) quickly and asked if they felt one bump or two.
  • Improving signal from a single bump with designer materials — BEHAVIORAL
    Investigators will coat single bumps with our designer materials (with alkyl and amino functional groups) to improve the mechanical stimuli from a single bump. Subjects will then be asked to perform a similar experiment as the "single bump acuity" test and the "optimal spacing between bumps" test. ("can you notice the bump?" or "did you feel one or two bumps").

Study Details

The objective of this project is to create richer tactile aids by using materials chemistry to create tactile sensations in tactile aids, as an alternative to traditional physical bumps, lines, or textures. These materials are commonly used in household products, but have not yet been used to enrich tactile aids. Successful outcomes are primarily the accuracy with which low vision or blind subjects identify objects made from tactile coatings versus traditional tactile aids. Other outcomes include time to completion of the task, or the number of distinctive categories that participants can identify.

Key Dates

Start date
Sep 1, 2021
Status verified
Mar 2024
Primary completion
Aug 31, 2026
Completion
Dec 31, 2027

Study Design

Enrollment
100 participants (estimated)
Allocation
NON_RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
SEQUENTIAL
Primary purpose
BASIC_SCIENCE

Arms

  • Experimental: Identifying and synthesizing high-contrast tactile materials without physical features
    Beyond the few materials investigators previously identified, it is unknown which materials are useful for creating tactile sensations. Common material properties such as a friction coefficient or hydrophilicity are insufficiently detailed to accurately predict friction forces-the basis of tactile stimuli. The investigators will use expertise in connecting tactile sensations with chemical structure through mechanical testing, theory, and human testing. The investigators' goal is to identify materials that lead to high tactile contrast without relying on physical features. (Tactile contrast is defined by the investigators as large differences in friction which are easily distinguishable by humans during free tactile exploration.)
  • Experimental: Building tactile aids with designer materials for plots, games, and object labeling
    Investigators will build static tactile aids with designer materials, i.e., silanes and polymers coatings. These aids will be a mathematical plot, a board game, and simulated money. Investigators will compare the speed, accuracy, and amount of information of hybrid tactile aids made from designer materials and physical features to traditional tactile aids made only with bumps.
  • Experimental: Optimal design of bumps and designer materials in tactile aids
    Reflecting the lack of standardized methods or benchmarks for tactile technologies, the known limits of tactile sensitivity was narrowed from millimeters, microns, to nanometers within the last 10 years by use of metal wires, wrinkled plastics, and silanes, respectively. Investigators will determine the optimal design of traditional bumps which yields the highest tactile stimulus in the smallest area. Investigators expect to find that current bumps are larger than necessary, and that the same information could be placed into a smaller area (higher information density). Then, investigators will augment bumps with designer materials to increase the tactile stimulus from a bump, thereby permitting even smaller bumps to increase information density. Beyond optimal design methods, the investigators' quantitative methods, enabled by making the mechanical stimulus the dependent variable, also serve as benchmarks between tactile aids.

Primary Outcome Measure

Success rate for correctly interpreting a tactile numeric plot of the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of four countries. [ Time Frame: Immediately after human testing (middle of year 2) ]

Locations (1)

FacilityCityStateZIPSite coordinators
University of DelawareNewarkDelaware19711
Charles Dhong
[email protected]
302-831-2828
Cynthia Papettas
[email protected]
3022796766
Charles Dhong, PhD (PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR)

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