Dataset related to "Guiding sightless people one dimension at a time: how the strategy used in spontaneous voice instructions benefits sonification-based guidance"

Dataset for the paper "Guiding sightless people one dimension at a time: how the strategy used in spontaneous voice instructions benefits sonification-based guidance", submitted to Disability & Rehabilitation. Open the README file for more information about the data. Abstract of the paper : Purpose: Sensory substitution aims to assist visually impaired people by converting spatial information into non-visual modalities, such as sound. The present study seek to improve the ergonomics of perceptual supplementation designed to guide a sightless person towards a 3-D located object using sounds. Materials and Methods: Two experiments were conducted using an invisible target-reaching task in a 3D virtual space. The first experiment was carried out on 20 sighted participants (eyes closed) and one visually impaired participant and compared sequential and parallel sonification. The second experiment involved 10 sighted participants and 10 sighted guides, and compared sequential sonification with voice guidance. Results: Sequential sonification enables faster target acquisition and is preferred by \textcolor{red}{sighted} participants; a similar pattern was observed for the visually impaired participant. Voice instructions suffer from latency and discontinuity, making them less efficient than sonification. The analysis of naive guides’ voice commands assessed that they naturally provide instructions one spatial dimension at a time, reinforcing the relevance of sequential sonification. Conclusions: By balancing efficiency and cognitive ease, the sequential approach shows promise for auditory guidance systems, though these findings -- largely based on blindfolded sighted participants -- require confirmation in larger visually impaired populations.