Work

"Put Your Hands Up": How Joint Attention Is Initiated Between Blind Children And Their Sighted Peers

Year: 2025

Type: conference-paper

Abstract: Initiating joint attention (JA) is a fundamental first step in social interactions. In sighted individuals, it relies predominantly on visual cues, such as gaze and hand gestures. These features can reduce opportunities for blind and visually impaired (BVI) and sighted people to interact. Understanding the strategies to navigate these challenges is necessary to develop technology that can facilitate case study of five children with mixed visual abilities engaging in activities rich with JA opportunities. In a teacher-led classroom, the children experimented with the use of an AI-powered headset designed to support BVI people in social situations. Interaction analysis established that situational complexity affects the children’s responses to initiation attempts. Furthermore, the headset adds to this complexity, affecting the frequency and reactions to attempts to initiate JA. The findings informed the creation of a JA initiation framework and suggestions for future design.

Source: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

DOI: 10.1145/3706598.3714005

Authors: Katherine Jones, Martin Grayson, Cecily Morrison, Ute Leonards, Oussama Metatla

Institutions: University of Bristol, Microsoft Research (United Kingdom)

Language: English

Topic: Assistive Technology in Communication and Mobility

Subfield: Occupational Therapy

Field: Health Professions

Domain: Health Sciences

SDG: Reduced inequalities

Open Access status: hybrid

Funder: UK Research and Innovation