Locked in Syndrome and Communication
bababardwan
April 30, 2010, 09:30 PM posted in General DiscussionI've been watching a 2007 French movie called "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"[le scaphandre et le papillon]:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diving_Bell_and_the_Butterfly
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0401383/
..which is the true story of a French journalist who suffered a massive stroke that left him with locked in syndrome which basically meant he was aware of his surroundings but was paralysed except for the movement of his eyes.
Why am I posting this? Well it was interesting from a communication viewpoint.His only means of communication was the ability to blink....one blink for yes,two blinks for no.What was particularly interesting was that he was able to write his memoirs from which the movie was adapted.His therapist devised a chart that started with the most frequently used letters in French and then proceeded in decreasing frequency.So she would look at him and start reading the letters in the chart and he would blink when he got to the letter he wanted.Naturally it seemed there were times when he spelt out only part of a word and the rest was obvious and she would confirm.The subtitles were interesting at this point also.She would read the letters...there were no subtitles at this point,but when he would blink on say "m" it would be subtitled as "d" as it would give the English spelling of the word in progress [eg m-o-u-r-i-r ...d-e-a-t-h...the discrepancy in length didn't matter as m-o-u-r was enough for his therapist to realise "mourir"].
trevorb
It seems there would be something that could be done using pinyin as initials finals and tone as only certain combinations of finals can combine with certain initials. Additionally not all tones are available for all combinations of initial and final so all of that should narrow down the options considerably.
Of course won't help too much in the confusing cases i.e. pronouns etc! Hopefully context would help there but might need some creative writing to ensure correct understanding. That said this must go for spoken chinese as well so it may not be as hard as I feel it would be from my current skill level :-)
orangina
I guess you could use a pinyin chart. Start with choosing the initial, then from a o e i u v, then the full final, and finally tone if it hasn't yet become clear. You could modify the chart to list the initials in order of frequency, but I think it would be simpler to keep the finals in order. I would also consider adding the tones at the end of the complete word rather than character. So 我们 would become women35 rather than wo3men5 because, like this example, you really only need wom to understand. I am sure there is a lot of guessing involved as well. If I were in the therapist's position in this example I would likely skip to o after w was indicated, then try the space marker then the m. If I was wrong anywhere along the line then I'd go back and work the chart methodically. It might even be easier than english. If the person who is locked in doesn't speak mandarin, they could use the input method where you choose the modified stroke... I forget what it is called. In either case, I might also have characters like 了and 的 on the chart along with the punctuation because in this scenario I am a native speaker and would be able to anticipate their inclusion.
xiaophil
I think Chinese people would be more comfortable identifying the character through number of strokes, like a dictionary or map. I think only children would prefer pinyin.
bababardwan
thanks orangina for both sharing some interesting thoughts on this and for reviving a thread I'd forgotten about. Interesting thought about having the tones at the end. I suppose the trick could be differentiating between the end of character and the end of the word in a multi-character[ could be two but could be more] word..but I guess it could work with a double and triple blink system.
I think working out frequency of initials and finals would be better and making a special pinyin chart adapted to the purpose would be better so as to increase efficiency and decrease fatigue/frustration.
Yes, in the movie I talked about the therapist did a fair bit of prediction...obviously a good idea.
Uncertain whether or not high frequency characters would be helpful or not as they are probably going to be the one's easiest to predict and may just make the list to go through longer.
bababardwan
I'm sure you're right. Personally I'd rather use orangina's system as I don't know the characters well enough in my head, but for a native that's a different kettle of fish.
xiaophil
This kind of made me think a bit. What kind of input system would the Chinese have used if they developed the computer first? They might use an alphanumeric keyboard for the same reason most people use Microsoft. Not because it is the best system, but because it is dominant.
trevorb
April 30, 2010, 10:17 PMIt seems there would be something that could be done using pinyin as initials finals and tone as only certain combinations of finals can combine with certain initials. Additionally not all tones are available for all combinations of initial and final so all of that should narrow down the options considerably.
Of course won't help too much in the confusing cases i.e. pronouns etc! Hopefully context would help there but might need some creative writing to ensure correct understanding. That said this must go for spoken chinese as well so it may not be as hard as I feel it would be from my current skill level :-)
bababardwan
April 30, 2010, 09:39 PMSo,the above got me thinking.How would this work in Chinese?
Would one proceed with pinyin?[What about order of frequency?] If so,I guess once the pinyin was spelt out ,perhaps it could be like pinyin input which tends to list the character options by frequency.Having a monitor in this case would be very helpful I suppose...make the characters large on the screen and then point at each one and wait for the blink.
Any thoughts?