• Login
  • Register

Work for a Member company and need a Member Portal account? Register here with your company email address.

Project

Synthetic Sensations

Copyright

Fluid Interfaces

Fluid Interfaces

Electrical stimulation has long been used in medicine to induce phosphenes, or visual sensations, in patients with visual impairments. Recent technological advancements have made this stimulation more accessible to the public, inciting a new era of research on neurostimulation for sensory enhancement. Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation (tACS) can non-invasively induce visual sensations called phosphenes (bright flashes) in the visual field with cutaneous retinal activation. We explore the use of tACS to elicit visual sensations and explore potential use cases. We designed a wearable tACS system and conducted a study to understand the visual sensations we could elicit and their efficacy when applied to augmenting a users spatial awareness. We found that our device reliably generated synthetic sensations and, when applied, significantly augmented users' ability to "see" objects approaching from behind compared to users with no feedback. We hope to inspire future research using tACS in systems for sensory enhancement.

Copyright

Fluid Interfaces

When objects are close from behind, the user will observe a higher frequency of visual flicker.

Copyright

Fluid Interfaces

Our system uses a distance sensor to convert distance information into variable visual sensations.                 

Copyright

Fluid Interfaces

We conducted a study, testing how effectively the system could elicit sensations and augment people's peripersonal awareness. 

Copyright

Fluid Interfaces

Our results show that our system consistently was able to elicit visual sensations and augment people's awareness of objects behind them.