A Vest That Can Cure Deafness, and Maybe One Day Give Us Entirely New Senses
Back in 2015, Neuroscientist David Eagleman gave a TED talk about the potential to expand and create new senses. He showed off a haptic vest prototype that could translate audio input into an array of 32 vibrating motors that could be fed directly into your body. The signals would reach the brain and create a neural input that is indistinguishable from what the cochlea would produce,… See More
meaning that it’s possible to turn the torso into an ear. The principle of sensory substitution shows that the brain doesn’t care where the data comes from as long as it’s structured in the right format and correlated to feedback within the environment.
I had a chance to catch up with Eagleman at the Experiential Technology Conference to talk about Neosensory’s VEST (Versatile Extra-Sensory Transducer), the hard problem of consciousness and how reality is constructed in the mind, expanding and creating new senses, invasive neural interfaces to the brain from Kernel, the philosophical implications of simulation theory, and his metaphors for how he understands the relationship between the mind and the body.
For more check out: www.roadtovr.com/vest-can-cure-deafnes…
Definitely could add to a Matrixlike VR experience with various forms of haptic feedback.
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Interesting for sure. As someone who has been hard of hearing all of my life, this is rather very fascinating. I have not watched it all of the way, but I have bookmarked it to watch later on.
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Awesome, I wonder when VR will turn inte the matrix
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