Accuracy and Coordination of Spatial Frames of Reference during the Exploration of Virtual Maps Interest for Orientation and Mobility of Blind People.pdfVIP

Hindawi Publishing Corporation Advances in Human-Computer Interaction Volume 2012, Article ID 835246, 14 pages doi:10.1155/2012/835246 Research Article Accuracy and Coordination of Spatial Frames of Reference during the Exploration of Virtual Maps: Interest for Orientation and Mobility of Blind People? 1 ´ 2 Mathieu Simonnet and Stephane Vieilledent 1 CNRS UMR 6285 LabSTICC-IHSEV/HAAL, Telecom Bretagne, Technopole Brest-Iroise, ˆ CS 83818-29238 Brest Cedex 3, France 2 LaTIM-Inserm U 1101, Universite de Brest (UEB), Brest, France ´ Correspondence should be addressed to Mathieu Simonnet, mathieu.simonnet@telecom-bretagne.eu Received 28 March 2012; Revised 16 July 2012; Accepted 24 July 2012 ¨ Academic Editor: Antonio Kruger Copyright © 2012 M. Simonnet and S. Vieilledent. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Even if their spatial reasoning capabilities remain quite similar to those of sighted people, blind people encounter difficulties in getting distant information from their surroundings. Thus, whole body displacements, tactile map consultations, or auditory solu- tions are needed to establish physical contacts with their environment. Therefore, the accuracy of nonvisual spatial representations heavily relies upon the efficiency of exploration strategies and the ability to coordinate egocentric and allocentric spatial frames of