A virtual reality environment to support chat rooms for hearing impaired and to teach Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS)

Brega J.R.F.; Rodello I.A.; Dias D.R.C.; Martins V.F.; De Paiva Guimaraes M.

A virtual reality environment to support chat rooms for hearing impaired and to teach Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS)

item.page.type

Artigo de evento

Date

2014

item.page.ispartof

Proceedings of IEEE/ACS International Conference on Computer Systems and Applications, AICCSA

item.page.citationsscopus

6

Authors

Brega J.R.F.
Rodello I.A.
Dias D.R.C.
Martins V.F.
De Paiva Guimaraes M.

Abstract

© 2014 IEEE.Improving the way that totally or partially deaf people communicate with the world is a challenging task for our society. One way to improve their communication is to learn sign language, which is a visual language based on hand shapes, orientations, and movements of the hands, arms, or body, and facial expressions. This paper aims to present a 3D virtual reality environment to allow deaf users to communicate with each other in a real-time, synchronous, instantaneous fashion via an online chat room and to assist the teaching-learning process of Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS). A three-dimensional avatar was developed which can translate words or sentences from Portuguese to LIBRAS. It was performed two experiments to evaluate the communication via the chat room: (1) with chat history enabled (visible) and (2) with chat history disabled (invisible). These evaluations involved 30 end-users, which confirmed that the virtual environment as developed here is effective to distance classes.

item.page.scopussubject

Deaf peoples , Hearing impaired , LIBRAS , online chat , Sign language