Exploring 3D miniatures with action simulations by finger gestures: Study of a new embodied design for blind and sighted children

Dannyelle Valente; Amaya Palama; Edouard Gentaz

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0245472

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionMay 7, 2020
17 Nov 2020 Decision Letter - Joseph Donlan, Editor PONE-D-20-13459 Exploring 3D miniatures with action simulations by finger gestures: study of a new embodied design for blind and sighted children PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Valente, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE - please accept my apologies for the time it has taken us to get a decision to you. Your manuscript has been evaluated by two external reviewers, whose reports are appended to this letter. The reports are broadly positive, but also raise some important concerns regarding the framing of the conclusions and study limitations. After careful consideration of the reports, we feel that your manuscript has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Dec 31 2020 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Dr Joseph Donlan Senior Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. Please state in your methods section whether you obtained consent from parents or guardians of the minors (those aged <18) included in the study or whether the research ethics committee or IRB approved the lack of parent or guardian consent. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Partly Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: This paper explores how action simulations by finger gestures (e.g., moving two fingers on a swing) can improve the identification of objects by children with visual impairments. This work has the motivation to improve the development of books for children with visual impairments as well as other materials where object identification is relevant. The paper builds upon research by the same authors on identification of objects by blind adults. The background is clear and comprehensive, and the work is very well motivated. The paper presents two experiments: one where the proposed procedure is compared in object identification tasks between blind and sighted children, and a second one where texture pictures (the de facto method for conveying tactile information to blind children) are compared in identification tasks by a set of different sighted and blind children. There is one overarching question related to the motivation presented by the authors that relates to the number of actions that can be presented with ASFG. It would be relevant to understand how this procedure can be applied beyond the limited set of actions presented. I am sure there are others, but question if they are representative in the large number of objects available in children's books. This is not a deal breaker for the specific contribution that is offered in this manuscript, but something that this reviewer finds relevant to see discussed given the context that is offered in the introduction. The major concern I have with the paper is the low sample size in each of the experiments, particularly considering visually impaired children (n=8 in each experiment). Adding to that, the experiments were also performed with different children. Although the paper does not try to explictly and statistically compare results between the two "experiments", it implies that recognition are better with ASFG than with Textures. Given the variability of children with visual impairments, and that not attempt to match the experimental and control groups was made, it is impossible to say something about this comparison. The results within each experiment are interesting, but given the limited sample sizes, they need to be taken into account carefully. I do find this work relevant and fidn the experiments to be interesting preliminary investigations. However, I would like to see the aforementioned points considered, and limitations clearly presented, toning down conclusions when needed. Minor issues: Please avoid using terms like "the blind" as they tend to define a person by their disability. Use instead terms like "blind people" or "people who are blind" (http://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/november-december-2015/writing-about-accessibility) 83: Close parenthesis 108: This idea is using 3D Reviewer #2: The paper presented an original study on 3D sensorimotor miniature explorations for embodied understanding of complex shapes and textures for visually impaired and blindfolded children. The topic is original, the state of art is quite extensive, even if I suggest to authors to add recent studies on sensory integration in typically and visually impaired children (e.g. Cappagli et al., 2019, Gori et al. 2010). The methodology and data analysis are well-explained and the paper is overall well written. For all these reason, I recommend to accept this contribution for publication. ****** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: Yes:** Erica Volta [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245472.r001
Revision 1
4 Dec 2020 Author Response Response to reviewers for “Exploring 3D miniatures with action simulations by finger gestures: study of a new embodied design for blind and sighted children” (PONE-D-20-13459) We would like to thank the editor and the reviewers for their constructive comments. We addressed all the points raised by the reviewer and editor and explained how below. In the manuscript, all changes are marked in blue. Journal Requirements: 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf Answer : In title page, country of authors are included. We proceeded to a verification of others items and style requirements are respected. 2. Please state in your methods section whether you obtained consent from parents or guardians of the minors (those aged <18) included in the study or whether the research ethics committee or IRB approved the lack of parent or guardian consent. Answer : The statement “Parents or guardians provided signed written informed consent forms for their children to participate in the experiment “ was included for Experiment 1 (page 10, line 205) and for Experiment 2 (page 18, line 369) Reviewer #1: Reviewer #1 : There is one overarching question related to the motivation presented by the authors that relates to the number of actions that can be presented with ASFG. It would be relevant to understand how this procedure can be applied beyond the limited set of actions presented. I am sure there are others, but question if they are representative in the large number of objects available in children's books. This is not a deal breaker for the specific contribution that is offered in this manuscript, but something that this reviewer finds relevant to see discussed given the context that is offered in the introduction. Answer: Thank you for raising this very interesting point. Indeed, although we explain in the Method section (page 10, line 211) the criteria on which we based our selection of the 7 ASFGs in this study, it is very important to show how these conclusions drawn from a limited set of actions can be extended to other illustrations included in books for blind children. We therefore further develop this point in General Discussion: Page 24, line 543: The central question of our study is the contribution of embodied cognition and sensorimotor experiences in blind and sighted childrens’ identification of illustrations. The advantage of 3D scenarios that engage ASFGs over traditional 3D miniatures (toys or miniature objects already commonly used in this field of intervention) is the reactivation of sensorimotor components by a gesture simulation (two fingers that act as two legs). As mentioned, this procedure was validated during the first phase of research in which a set of 18 ASFGs have been studied [25]. In the present study, we tested only 7 of these 18 following a feasibility criterion due to the design and nature of the study. Specifically, the ASFGs included should be reproducible in 3D miniature and also represented as 2D content. However, it is important to note that our previous study [25] showed that several other ASFGs are also very prototypical (same gestural pattern in the congenitally blind, late blind and sighted adults) such as "Kicking a ball", "Jumping on one leg" or "Walking backwards". These other ASFGs can be included in a book for blind children even if they have not been tested here. Let us also add that the contribution of the embodied cognition that we have awakened via the ASFG procedure is not limited to the use of the ASFG. An example from our own study is the illustration of the toboggan as a textured picture that seems to be better recognized than the other illustrations due to the possible role of the sensorimotor experience reactivated when hands explore the slope of the toboggan. Other examples of illustrations involving sensorimotor or perceptual experiences other than visual ones can be found in books for blind children. For example, in the book entitled Wa-Wa (2012) about toilets published by the non-profit publishing house Les Doigts Qui Rêvent, children can flush the toilet thanks to an interactive system and a cord attached to the page. In A Magic Winter (2012) also published by Les Doigts Qui Rêvent, the child can walk on the snow, which is “illustrated” by a texture reproducing the sound and the sensation under the feet. The book “We’re going on a bear hunt” (2015) designed with our scientific support [48] has a sliding mechanism allowing the reader to move a character to the other end of the page. In the very interactive book “The three little pigs” (2019) published by the non-profit publishing house Mes Mains en Or, the reader blows down pop-up houses with his breath. Following direct feedback from child readers and their entourage who seem to appreciate this content more than the visual content in relief, some designers of tactile books are already choosing illustrations that allow for manipulation of objects, sounds and reactivation of haptic and sensorimotor experiences. The major contribution of our study is to provide scientific evidence of the role of these experiences in the identification of objects by touch, regardless of the visual status of the children. A feasibility study is already underway with our editorial partnership (non-profit publishing house Les Doigts Qui Rêvent) to evaluate the possibilities of including ASFGs in tactile devices such as children's books but also in mobility aids. Reviewer #1: The major concern I have with the paper is the low sample size in each of the experiments, particularly considering visually impaired children (n=8 in each experiment). Adding to that, the experiments were also performed with different children. Although the paper does not try to explicitly and statistically compare results between the two "experiments", it implies that recognition are better with ASFG than with Textures. Given the variability of children with visual impairments, and that not attempt to match the experimental and control groups was made, it is impossible to say something about this comparison. The results within each experiment are interesting, but given the limited sample sizes, they need to be taken into account carefully. Answer: Thank you for this comment. Despite our sample size being comparable with other studies in the field (Lederman et al, 1990; Bara, 2014; Heller, 1996), we agree that the sample size of early blind children participated in two experiments is a limitation to the generalization of the findings. Hence, we added a limitation paragraph at the discussion to point this issue: Page 25, line 524: A limitation to the generalization of the findings reported here, however, is the small sample size of early blind children included in the two experiments. Indeed, gathering samples of sufficient size is a common challenge for researchers working in the field of visual impairment [45, 46]. The population of people with visual impairments is characterized by wide interpersonal variability due to the type of visual pathology and age of diagnosis. There is a small number of adults and children who are completely blind since birth or since the first few years of life, and some have pathologies entailing additional handicaps. Thus, instead of trying to gather large samples of subjects at risk for having a large interpersonal variability, we found it more relevant to have two small samples with a larger exclusion criterion. This enables us to have corresponding inter-group profiles with regard to the age of diagnosis of complete blindness (early blind), no additional handicaps and educational level. Without intending to statistically compare results from the two experiments, the profile match between the two groups provides an overview of the effects of two techniques of illustration on early blind and sighted childrens’ identification of the same objects. Although our simple size is comparable with other studies in the field assessing recognition of tactile content by blind children and adults [2, 23, 47], findings need to be taken into account carefully. Reviewer #1/Minor issues : Please avoid using terms like "the blind" as they tend to define a person by their disability. Use instead terms like "blind people" or "people who are blind" (http://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/november-december-2015/writing-about-accessibility) : Line 37: “The blind” changed for “blind people” Line 156: “the sighted and the blind simulations” changed for “the sighted and blind adults’ simulations” Line 240: the blind changed for “blind people” 83: Close parenthesis: Line 83, Corrected 108: This idea is using 3D: Line 108: Corrected, “the idea is to use” Reviewer #2: I suggest to authors to add recent studies on sensory integration in typically and visually impaired children (e.g. Cappagli et al., 2019, Gori et al. 2010). Answer: Thank you very much for this suggestion. Indeed, our study is in dialogue with the proposed references, which show the importance of multisensory calibration in a context of blindness. We have included these studies in the introduction: Page 6, line 129 : Furthermore, studies on sensory integration [37, 38] have shown that lack of vision can alter the intermodal calibration necessary for spatial discrimination in blind children [for a review see 39]. Thus, compensation via other intact senses associating for example auditory and motor information can help blind children to process spatial information [38]. Gappagli and colleagues have tested a technological device (ABBI - Audio Bracelet for Blind Interaction), which emits a sound when a movement occurs, with 3-7 year-old children with congenital blindness or low vision. After 3 months of training, authors found that the spatial performance of congenitally blind but not low vision children is improved. Results indicated that in the absence of sight, the association of sensorimotor data with other intact senses is of great importance. 37. Gori M, Sandini G, Martinoli C, Burr D. Impairment of auditory spatial localization in congenitally blind human subjects. Brain. 2014;137(1):288-93. doi: doi.org/10.1093/brain/awt311. 38. Cappagli G, Finocchietti S, Baud-Bovy G, Cocchi E, Gori M. Multisensory rehabilitation training improves spatial perception in totally but not partially visually deprived children. Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience. 2017;11. doi: doi.org/10.3389/fnint.2017.00029. 39. Valente D, Bara F, Afonso Jaco A, Baltenneck N, Gentaz E. La perception tactile des propriétés spatiales des objets chez les personnes aveugles. Enfance. in press. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to reviewers.pdf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245472.r002
2 Jan 2021 Decision Letter - Tiago Guerreiro, Editor Exploring 3D miniatures with action simulations by finger gestures: study of a new embodied design for blind and sighted children PONE-D-20-13459R1 Dear Dr. Valente, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Tiago Guerreiro, Ph.D. Guest Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments: For full disclosure, I participated as a reviewer for the initial evaluation of this manuscript, as Reviewer 1, and asked for clarifications and changes. I appreciate the changes performed in the manuscript; I find the paper to be methodologically sound and clear. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245472.r003
Formally Accepted
7 Jan 2021 Acceptance Letter - Tiago Guerreiro, Editor PONE-D-20-13459R1 Exploring 3D miniatures with action simulations by finger gestures: study of a new embodied design for blind and sighted children Dear Dr. Valente: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Tiago Guerreiro Guest Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245472.r004

Open letter on the publication of peer review reports

PLOS recognizes the benefits of transparency in the peer review process. Therefore, we enable the publication of all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. Reviewers remain anonymous, unless they choose to reveal their names.

We encourage other journals to join us in this initiative. We hope that our action inspires the community, including researchers, research funders, and research institutions, to recognize the benefits of published peer review reports for all parts of the research system.

Learn more at ASAPbio .