Lexicon System

Base-4 Eye Gaze Communication System

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5/25/2025: I have had writer’s block on this so long I am just going to put something together short and incomplete for the sake of getting it done. NOTE: This is the physical letter to ALS clinics/doctors and organizations. Needs edit for website.

I believe I have come up with a system for eye-gaze communication which is an improvement over the traditional spelling card. It uses strings of three quaternary symbols instead of the eight directions that the spelling card uses. I am calling them Up, Down, Black, and White to get around the problem of forever having to mentally transpose left and right between communicators. I think for testing and training purposes and really, what will probably get used more than using it for spelling it would make the most sense to start with it as a menu of TV and radio channels, bands, albums, movies, podcasts, or YouTube channels… You get the picture.

4 cubed makes 64 but for simplicity I have removed all the three symbol strings that have a repeating symbols (Up Up Down is not present, e.g.). This leaves us with a ‘menu’ of 36 choices, magically the same as the alphanumeric keyboard. The ‘words’ would be separated by blinking several times to indicate a finished word or whole choice. These can obviously be complimented with the ‘look to this hand for yes and this one for no’ method.

My sister when she was still alive expressed an interest in trying this out as a menu for TV channels but due to my alcoholism and other issues and our family generally not being very motivated to do it I have not actually tried it out, but I am certain it has a place with patients who can no longer speak.

In theory each of the 36 options could lead to another chart, giving 36 squared or 1296 choices. In practice you’d maybe more likely want like 32 on ‘speed dial’ and then maybe 4 additional charts. For simplicity.

I also think this could make a much easier to use operating system / user interface paradigm than the on-screen eye-gaze keyboard on a Tobii device. 4 points of focus in the corners might be a bit more out of the way of the working window than an up down left right points of focus system. 4 points of focus would be much simpler and less tricky both to program for and to use, I am certain.

I am calling this the Lexicon System. Think of it as like a phrasebook you would use when you don’t really know the language. It might enable more satisfying, if limited, back and forth conversations than what has previously been possible. For writers who could afford to hire a communications assistant, it could enable them to continue writing, even!

This would be simpler with a Tobii than a human interpreter though. That could be called Lexicorners.

It appears that I have covered every point in my notes. I can be reached for questions, comments or job proposals at cooper.dozier@gmail.com and 502 202 5767

I got this idea after developing an earlier version of my creativity/brainstorming/divination tool which you can read about and see at https://tkos.dev. Haven’t uploaded it in chart form, but the way it works is that you roll a dice to get the row coordinate and flip a coin three times to make a binary number to select the column coordinate.

I am certain that patients who have lost the ability to speak and their caregivers would be delighted merely to offer the patient more agency over what is on the TV/Stereo.

Download the full set of images and .odg (LibreOffice Draw) files here: lexicon-system.zip