Nancy Frishberg


San Francisco, CA, USA

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  • "The project, while "creative," is demonstrably NOT user-centered. Patrick Hyland's comment fits within this criticism. This project does not recognize that Deaf people prefer sign languages, that captioning substitutes a written representation for spoken language, that what is offered is (once again) a one-way communication system, but no help for hearing people who are trying to "listen" to deaf people.The Q-system does not remove the need for interpreters (unless you assume all communication is one-way from hearing to deaf people). Why is wearing the Q-system band less obtrusive than an interpreter? How is asking your speaking partner to wear a microphone less obtrusive and more conducive to interaction among equals than an interpreter?This project assumes that captioning is a satisfactory accommodation, but if these designers had spent a bit of time looking at prior research or interacting with Deaf people, they would understand that captioning lacks many of the features of transmission in natural languages (including sign languages). Q-system breaks the usual (and necessary) shared eye-gaze for communication among deaf people or between deaf and hearing people. The experienced sign language user knows that blinking or withdrawing eye-gaze carry linguistic meaning.It assumes that someone who hasn't heard (or hasn't heard for a long time) will know what the meaning of intonation/emotional cues is. No, these meaning of loudness, frequency and duration are all learned from social interaction and cultural patterns. So there is a big learning curve to take advantage of whatever these cues might be. Of course, both excited happy conversations and excited angry conversations will both have higher volume, possibly raised pitch and other similar cues.I wish Core77 would evaluate these projects with respect to usefulness and ecological validity before promoting them. Note this statement from the Linguistics department of University of Washington acknowledging the errors made by the public information offices of UWash and MIT in promoting SignAloud project. Many of the same objections can be made about this project. https://catalyst.uw.edu/workspace/file/download/5c706e255e89d3eea9cc0a7d6ac1fb3e89c44cfdc54774630e7637ef0eb47f94?inline=1"
    on: A Wearable Captioning Device for the Hearing Impaired
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