CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application claims priority to and the benefit of Korean Patent Application No. 10-2018-0033274, filed on Mar. 22, 2018, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to language learning technology for deaf people, and more particularly, to a deaf-specific language learning system and method capable of enabling deaf people to learn a language on the basis of vibration based on pattern information into which learning data is converted.

2. Discussion of Related Art

Communication methods for deaf people include a manual method, a written method, an oral method, and the like. The manual method is the most common communication method used by deaf people who have learned sign language. However, it is not possible to communicate with listeners who have not learned sign language.

The written method is advantageous in that the written method allows deaf people and listeners to communicate by using well-known characters and also is disadvantageous in that the written method has a slow communication speed and many constraints to usage environments because a voice or sign language is not used.

The oral method is a method of grasping the meaning by looking at the mouth shape of a conversation partner. The oral method has limitations of being difficult to master and of allowing conversations to be made only while looking at the face of a conversation partner.

In order to remove the disadvantages experienced by deaf people, research is being conducted on communication aids. As some of the most commonly used communication aids, there are a method of utilizing a cochlear implantation surgery and a method of using a hearing aid.

The cochlear implantation surgery needs a surgical operation, which causes high surgical and maintenance costs, and accompanies side effects such as headache, dizziness, and inconvenience of wearing.

Actually, even after the cochlear implantation surgery, speech conversion may not be possible, and thus it is frequent to have to re-learn sign language.

Hearing aids are meaningless when used by people who wholly lack the sense of hearing and also are accompanied by inconvenience of wearing like the cochlear implantation surgery.

As another method for removing the disadvantages experienced by deaf people, research is being actively conducted on a method of replacing auditory information with tactile information.

The method of replacing auditory information with tactile information is not a short-term method that can improve communication with deaf people immediately after use but a method of improving communication through learning for a certain time period, as with a language.

At present, a technique of utilizing tactile replacement only focuses on device development, and there is little research on learning technology which deaf people may use in communication.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned problems of the related art. The present invention is directed to providing a deaf-specific language learning system and method capable of allowing a deaf person to learn a language through vibration of a vibration actuator by converting voice-type learning data into pattern information and operating the vibration actuator on the basis of the pattern information.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a deaf-specific language learning system including a sound input device configured to receive a voice from an external source; a learning server configured to store learning data and correction information; a signal processor configured to output voice pattern information corresponding to a voice signal received from the sound input device; a learning processor configured to output learning pattern information regarding the learning data received from the learning server and also output a learning result through similarity analysis; and an actuator controller configured to vibrate a vibration actuator according to the voice pattern information and the learning pattern information.

The learning processor may include a learning data input module configured to extract the learning data from the learning server and output the extracted learning data; a pattern information output module configured to output the learning pattern information corresponding to the learning data; and a similarity analysis module configured to calculate a voice similarity score between the learning data and the voice signal, calculate a pattern similarity score between the voice pattern information and the learning pattern information, and total the voice similarity score and the pattern similarity score to output a similarity analysis result.

The similarity analysis module may calculate the voice similarity score by comparing a voice recognition result obtained by performing voice recognition on the voice signal to the learning data.

The similarity analysis module may calculate the pattern similarity score by dividing the voice pattern information and the learning pattern information into sections, performing similarity analysis on each section, and totaling a similarity analysis result for each section.

The learning processor may further include a visualization module configured to visualize and display the learning pattern information and the voice pattern information.

The learning processor may further include a tutor configured to generate feature data indicating a difference between the voice pattern information and the learning pattern information and provide the correction information according to the feature data when the similarity analysis result for each section is less than a reference value.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a deaf-specific language learning method including outputting learning pattern information corresponding to learning data; driving a vibration actuator on the basis of the learning pattern information; outputting voice pattern information according to a voice signal corresponding to an input voice and also outputting the voice signal; and calculating a voice similarity score between the learning data and the voice signal, calculating a pattern similarity score between the learning pattern information and the voice pattern information, and totaling the voice similarity score and the pattern similarity score to output a similarity analysis result.

The calculating of the voice similarity score may include calculating the voice similarity score by performing voice recognition on the voice signal and comparing a result of the voice recognition to the learning data.

The calculating of the pattern similarity score may include calculating the pattern similarity score by dividing the learning pattern information and the voice pattern information into sections, performing similarity analysis for each section, and totaling a result of the similarity analysis for each section.

The deaf-specific language learning method may further include comparing the similarity analysis result for each section to a reference value, generating feature data indicating a difference between the voice pattern information and the learning pattern information and providing correction information according to the feature data when the similarity analysis result for each section is less than the reference value.

