Meeting Minutes

Date:	April 1st, 2009
Location:	DC 1331
Time:	1:30
Chair:	Kate Kinnear

1. Attendance

Andrea Bunt Bill Cowan Elodie Fourquet Richard Fung Eugene Green Marshall Hahn Craig Kaplan Kate Kinnear Stephen Mann Zainab Meraj Alex Pytel Martin Talbot Jie Xu Cherry Zhang

2. Coffee Hour

Coffee hour last week:: Jing and Matthew- thanks!
Coffee hour this week:: Kate
Coffee hour next week:: Volunteers?

3. Forthcoming

Date:	April 8th, 2009	April 15th, 2009	April 22nd, 2009	April 29th, 2009
Location:	DC 1331 1:30	DC 1331 1:30	DC 1331 1:30	DC 2303 1:30
Chair:	Ryan Stedman	Stephen Mann	Michael McCool	Zainab Meraj
Technical Presentation:	Craig Kaplan	Kate Kinnear	Ben Lafreniere	Stephen Mann

4. Technical Presentation

Martin Talbot	Title : On the Audio Representation of Distance for Blind Users Abstract: This study examines methods for displaying distance information to blind travellers using sound, focussing on abstractions of methods currently used in commercial Electronic Travel Aids (ETAs). Ten blind participants assessed three sound encodings commonly used to convey distance information by ETAs: sound frequency (Pitch), Ecological Distance (ED), and temporal variation or Beat Rate (BR). Response time and response correctness were chosen for measures. Pitch variation was found to be the least effective encoding, which is a surprise because most ETAs encode distance as Pitch. Tempo, or BR, encoding was found to be superior to Pitch. ED, which was simulated by filtering high frequencies and decreasing intensity with distance, was found to be best. Grouping BR and ED redundantly slightly outperformed ED. Consistent polarity across participants was found in ED and BR but not in Pitch encoding.

Martin Talbot

Title : On the Audio Representation of Distance for Blind Users
Abstract:
This study examines methods for displaying distance information to blind travellers using sound, focussing on abstractions of methods currently used in commercial Electronic Travel Aids (ETAs). Ten blind participants assessed three sound encodings commonly used to convey distance information by ETAs: sound frequency (Pitch), Ecological Distance (ED), and temporal variation or Beat Rate (BR). Response time and response correctness were chosen for measures.

Pitch variation was found to be the least effective encoding, which is a surprise because most ETAs encode distance as Pitch. Tempo, or BR, encoding was found to be superior to Pitch. ED, which was simulated by filtering high frequencies and decreasing intensity with distance, was found to be best. Grouping BR and ED redundantly slightly outperformed ED. Consistent polarity across participants was found in ED and BR but not in Pitch encoding.

5. Discussion Items

The meeting agenda and minutes creation forms have been modified by Steve
CRAW posters are in the lab for anyone who would like to see them

6. Action Items

Meeting for April 29th will be in DC 2303

7. Conferences and Special Journal Issues

Recent Additions

CGVCVIP2009

Upcoming Deadlines

Apr 05, 2009: CHI 2009 Conference

8. Directors' Meeting

9. Seminars and Events

2009 Apr 01, 13:30 - Algorithms and Complexity Group Seminar
      Periklis Papakonstantinou, University of Toronto
      A hierarchy between P and RP

2009 Apr 01, 16:30 - Distinguished Lecture Series Seminar
      Nancy Leveson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
      Computers and Trust

2009 Apr 02, 10:30 - Computer Science Seminar
      Martin Bravenboer, University of Massachusetts Amherst
      Software Development Challenges: Abstraction and Analysis

2009 Apr 03, 11:30 - Artificial Intelligence Lab Seminar
      Jesse Hoey (University of Dundee, Scotland)
      Intelligent Devices to Engage Cognitively Disabled Older Adults in Visual Artwork

2009 Apr 03, 14:00 - Bioinformatics Group PhD Seminar
      Christina Ann Boucher, PhD Candidate, David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo
      Detecting motifs in a large data set: applying probabilistic insights to motif finding

2009 Apr 03, 16:30 - CS Club talk
      Craig Kaplan, University of Waterloo

Also see other Math and CS postings.