Continued Testing of Head-Mounted Displays for Deaf Education in a Planetarium

Abstract

For more than a year now we have been developing techniques for using Head-Mounted Displays (HMD) to help accommodate a deaf audience in a planetarium environment. Our target audience is primarily children from 8 to 13 years of age, but the methodologies can be used for a wide variety of audiences. Applications also extend beyond the planetarium environment. Three tests have been done to determine if American Sign Language (ASL) can be delivered to the HMD and the student view both the planetarium show and the ASL ‘sound track’. From those early results we are now at the point of testing for comprehension improvement on a number of astronomical subjects. We will present a number of these early results.