Computer Sciences Commons^™

Connecting The Dots For People With Autism: A Data-Driven Approach To Designing And Evaluating A Global Filter, Viseth Sean

Computational and Data Sciences (PhD) Dissertations

"Social communication is the use of language in social contexts. It encompasses social interaction, social cognition, pragmatics, and language processing” [3]. One presumed prerequisite of social communication is visual attention–the focus of this work. “Visual attention is a process that directs a tiny fraction of the information arriving at primary visual cortex to high-level centers involved in visual working memory and pattern recognition” [7]. This process involves the integration of two streams: the global and local streams; the global stream rapidly processes the scene, and the local stream processes details. This integration is important to social communication in that attending …

Wayfinder Application For Autistic Occupational Assistance, Nathaniel Edward Hishon

Master's Theses

Employment among autistic individuals is an area of noted difficulty, with an employment rate well below the general population [1]. Several barriers attributed to autistic unemployment, including difficulties communicating with employers and social interactions with coworkers, obsessive adherence to routine, and trouble organizing and completing workplace tasks, are also attributed to challenges in maintaining employment [2]. Several studies have concluded that long-term employment support is necessary to acquire and maintain autistic employment [3]. The noted benefit of intensive job training, such as access to job coaches, indicates the need for further support to help autistic individuals complete workplace tasks and …

Stylized 2d Fabrication Of Non-Photorealistic Images, Athina Panotopoulou

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

A current trend in computer graphics is the use of programmable tools that allow non-experts to engage in the design of physical prototypes. Within fabrication, one area of research focuses on non-photorealistic images which are stylized to depict a particular aesthetic quality or convey key information. In cases where authenticity is demanded or the images need to be manipulated, fabrication is necessary. Non-photorealistic image fabrication involves two challenges: identifying and abstracting key information during design and considering material restrictions during fabrication. This thesis showcases two examples for fabricating new types of non-photorealistic images, the first involving watercolors, and the second …

Testing And Improving An Optimization-Based Digital Colorblindness Corrective Filter, Zachary Kenneth Mcintyre

Senior Projects Fall 2020

Computers often communicate essential information via color which is lost to colorblind users. In order to address this information loss, designers and computer scientists have created a variety of different correction methods to improve computer accessibility. One such method was created by Luke Jefferson and Richard Harvey in their 2006 paper, “Accommodating Color Blind Computer Users” which consists of a difference histogram, differences of key colors, optimization and interpolation to adjust images for specific types of congenital colorblindness. I have recreated their algorithm as well as their original test images. I then conducted extensive tests on challenging images to examine …

Virtual Reality Accessibility With Predictive Trails, Dani Paul Hove

Honors Projects

Comfortable locomotion in VR is an evolving problem. Given the high probability of vestibular-visual disconnect, and subsequent simulator sickness, new users face an uphill battle in adjusting to the technology. While natural locomotion offers the least chance of simulator sickness, the space, economic and accessibility barriers to it limit its effectiveness for a wider audience. Software-enabled locomotion circumvents much of these barriers, but has the greatest need for simulator sickness mitigation. This is especially true for standing VR experiences, where sex-biased differences in mitigation effectiveness are amplified (postural instability due to vection disproportionately affects women).

Predictive trails were developed as …