The Cost of Knowing: How Obstacle Alerts Reduce Walking Speeds of Augmented White Cane Users

To ensure safe passage blind travellers utilize mobility aids such as the white cane to preview space their body will move through. Augmented canes (AWC) have increased this range reduce collisions, but consequently incurred lower walking speeds. The literature has blamed slowdown on AWC provided alerts that are additional feedback, unnecessary, too complex, and anticipatory of users. Two within-subject studies with six visually impaired ten blindfolded people compared two different types (See Figure 1) combined ranges investigate causes slowdowns. cognitive cost from processing unnecessary complexity slowed users down should be kept a minimum they neither helped collisions nor physically detecting obstacles cane.