| Budget Amount *help |
¥3,700,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,700,000)
Fiscal Year 2005: ¥800,000 (Direct Cost: ¥800,000)
Fiscal Year 2004: ¥2,900,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,900,000)
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| Research Abstract |
In order to operate a personal computer, one needs to keep an eye on the screen while manipulating keyboard and/or mouse with fingers. For patients with sever neuromuscular disorders, these tasks become impossible as the motor weakness advances to the point only the eye movements are left intact. In some patients, even the eye movements themselves are weak and fatigable. In order for such patients to build a sentence in Japanese, currently available software requires watching the kana letter board presented on the screen. When the scrolling cursor hit the target letter, the patient picks it up with an eye blink which is electrophysiologically detectable. However, this method requires heavy use of eye and is often intolerable for them. In order to overcome these difficulties, we set out to develop a new software by which the subject is able to pick up Japanese kana at his/her will simply by recognizing the sound presented without seeing the screen (Director8, Macromedia). Japanese kana is phonemic language consists of 46syllabary(kana) with one syllable corresponding to one kana letter. In the experiment, each kana was pronounced by a Japanese female announcer and was sampled separately using a software (Peak LE 2,10,BIAS). The sound for each kana was then presented to the subject in sequential way using automatic scan method. The preliminary result showed that the control subjects were able to pick up one kana within 5 seconds in average at step interval of 0.5 seconds.
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