A Guide to Senses from a Manipulation Perspective

Transcription

1 very incomplete draft A Guide to Senses from a Manipulation Perspective by Wo Meijer very incomplete draft

2 Introduction This document provides a brief overview of the human sense available to designers who are interested in modifying the perception and thus the experience of users via direct manipulation of their sense. This list of sense is meant as a quick decision making tool for selecting senses to elaborate on further. Thus, when selecting a sense, a designer must ensure that the context of their user fits the sense and in turn that the sense fits the context. Each sense is rated on several characteristics shown on the right. low high Wo Meijer created this document as part of his master s thesis. For more information about him and his work, visit womeijer.com This is version 0.1 of this document, created on October 29, 2018

3 Senses Contents: Vibration Stretch Pressure EMS Ultrasound/Infra sound Temp (local) Temperature global Balance Smell

4 Vibrations are mechanical oscillations of force applied to the skin. This is usually done via vibration motors or linear actuators placed on the users skin. S. Novich and D. Eagleman, 2015 J. Chen et al, 2018 R. Scheibe et al, 2007 T. Eftling, 2012 Vibration is a low cost, low barrier method of sensory manipulation. Vibration could be used to manipulate the texture felt by the user, however this would require extreme precision and timing. Vibration Stretch Skin stretch is the sensation of the skin being pushed together or pulled apart. V. Hayward and J. Cruz-Hernandez Z. Quek et al, 2014 While there are a number of research papers, ready made actuators are uncommon. Caution must be used to ensure the stretching does not become painful.

5 Pressure is a force exerted over an area of the skin. This can be done any number of ways and over any part(s) of the body. Pressure It is possible to seriously injure the user with a pressure based system, caution must be taken especially when dealing with people in a weakened state. and usability greatly vary with the actuation method and set up of the system. EMS (shock) Electrical muscle stimulation is the process of using electrodes to trigger a user s muscles. In this case it can be used at lower voltages to trigger muscle movements. plopes.org/ems/ Max Pfeiffer: Let Your Body Move EMS systems are often difficult to hack and can be damaged. It is extremely important to calibrate the settings of a system to each user as skin resistance changes with many factors. Please double check safety instructions for TENS systems.

6 Infra and Ultra sound are vibrations of the air that are beyond the range of human hearing. This means that designers can utilize sound tools while getting vibration and pressure like results. Ultra/Infra Sound There is some research that indicates that infrasound creates the feeling of dread in humans. Temperature (local) Skin can sense it s temperature to a relative degree (above or below body temperature) and is able to do so for a small area. This means a user will be able to tell when a heater is placed only on a certain part of their body.

7 Skin can sense it s temperature to a relative degree (above or below body temperature) and extrapolate this to the temperature of the users enviroment. This is noted as global temperature. Temp. (global) Balance The user s sense of balance can be modified using electrodes placed directly on the nerves running from the inner ear to the brain. This allows the user to feel the sensation that their head is tilting to the left or right. The technical term for this process is Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation or GVS. Shaking the World (video) Shaking the World (paper) The same cautions as EMS apply. It is very easy to cause discomfort and errors when modifying the GVS.

8 The human sense of smell is a complex mechanism that recognizes certain rich combinations of chemicals. Unfortunately, no base elements of smell have been able to reproduce arbitrary smells. Thus, systems are limited to whatever smells the designer puts in them to begin with. Smell The reaction to certain smells is extremely subjective as it triggers specific memories. Thus extreme awarness of the users and their context must be applied when developing smell based systems.

9 Senses that are combinations of inputs These so called senses are in fact combinations of different inputs. However, the probable reason why they are colloquially referred to as senses, they provide input to the user and can be manipulated using external inputs. However, this is where the discussion of what is a sense and the difference of sense and perception start to really come into play. These were separated due to being relatively simple, or having well documented manipulations. Contents: Wetness Proprioception Body Transfer Illusion Sense of Direction Spatial Perception How Humans Sense Wetness Wetness

10 Proprioception Body Transfer Illusion

11 Sense of Direction Spatial Perception

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