CONCEPT
Perception plays a large role in how we learn, what we remember, how we move, and what we say. Today’s tools tend to focus on visual media; videos, images, graphic user interfaces, etc. Even the rising field of augmented reality deals primarily with a visual synthesis of environments. However, research in embodied cognition tells us that perception – in learning, remembering, navigating, and so on – is not only a mental and visual operation, but it is also physical act; an embodied performance. Here we design a tool for augmenting our perception by adding a layer of informative haptic stimuli. In other words, we use the whole body as a means to interface with information.
PROTOTYPING
PnueSkin is a wearable tool that communicates information through a full-body tactile braille; a haptic augmented reality. Through a series of air channels, the suit is able to create patterns of touch and motion throughout the body. These patterns can function in different ways. Patterns can be associated with particular tasks so that it reinforces the act by adding physical memory. The system could also represent objects in space to help navigate an environment. Similarly, specific spaces could be embedded with haptic information, so that as you walk through that particular place, information is being given to you through physical sensation.
Prototype of Pneumatic Chambers. Haptic sensation & ability to create pixelation through air channels.
All Chambers Activated
Associating Sense of Touch with Learning Process
Informative Haptic Patterning to Represent Environment
Aiding Elderly by Creating Physical Memory
BODY AS INTERFACE
According to the Semmes Weinstein Two Point Test, we have varying tactile resolution throughout our bodies. For example if something touches your forearm at two points 30mm apart, you could discern that you are being touched in two separate locations. However, this would not be the case on your calve. There, any two points of touch less than 46mm apart, would feel like a single point of contact. Understanding our body’s sense of touch is key in utilizing it to interface with information. While complex patterns could be displayed at the chest and arms, simpler rhythms at lower resolution areas could communicate supplemental information. The range of resolution here creates a more complex matrix of communication.
Location Based Braille: Adding a Layer of Information to Space
Tactile Resolution Throughout Human Body
Informative Pneumatic Skin Schema
Project Roles:
Ideation / Research / Interface Computational Design
• Collaborated in brainstorming sessions for ideation
• Analyzed experimental research on embodied cognition
• Researched psychological & neurological studies of haptic perception
• Collaborated in recreating two-point discrimination threshold test
• Designed layered assembly for wearable haptic interface
• Fabricated prototype of pneumatic chambers
• Produced imagery, and graphic representations for publications
Project Credits:
Team:
• Ricardo Jnani Gonzalez. Master's of Science in Design
• Cagri Hakan Zaman. PhD Candidate in Computation
Affiliated Professor:
• Pattie Maes. Fluid Interfaces, MIT Media Lab
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