There’s far more going on in the environment that humans have the senses to detect. Birds migrate with the help of the Earth’s magnetic field, and certain species of fish can detect electrical fields. For his Hackaday Prize entry, [Sebastian] is giving us a sixth sense. He’s building a device that allows anyone to detect the Earth’s magnetic field and find their way north for the summer.
The initial idea for [Sebastian]’s project came after his father’s inner ear was damaged. The doctor told him his brain needed to be trained to work with only one inner ear. If it works for balance, [Sebastian] wondered, why couldn’t the brain be trained to listen to an extra sensory input?
[Sebastian]’s device is an accelerometer and magnetometer, connected to a microcontroller that drives a few vibration motors. By mounting these motors around an ankle strap, [Sebastian] hopes to train his brain to listen to the magnetic fields.
So far, [Sebastian] has a device that can sense the Earth’s magnetic field and buzzes the motor closest to magnetic north. There’s still a lot of work to do, including filtering the magnetometer inputs, adding a ‘sleep’ mode, and putting Bluetooth functionality on board, but it’s already a very well-designed project.
We already have what is regarded as a sixth distinct sense: balance. Detected by little rocks in your ears.
This artificial augmentation would be a seventh.
You mean sensing acceleration. Which is used for balance.
What about proprioception? Really, there are probably about thirty different senses.
Humans have more than 6 senses, however “6th sense” is used as a colloquial term for additional senses people don’t normally have.
It’s detected by hairs coated in a mucus. When you tilt your head the mucus moves and tugs the hairs, generating an electrical signal. Not a sense of acceleration but a sense of balance. Humans experience acceleration as a collateral effect of that mucus hair matrix getting overloaded with input.
It’s very much a sense of acceleration. That’s calculated by looking at the euler vector of body kinematics and gravity. In space, the rocks and mucus just float there until you change velocity. Remember, change in velocity is acceleration.
Saw something similar in ’07: http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/15.04/esp.html
I was also sure I had seen something like this before, but I believe they wore it about their ankle, same exact concept though.
It’s interesting how many animals are sensitive to magnetic fields, yet we aren’t naturally.
Look up the “Feelspace” http://neurohack.me/category/sensory-augmentation/ and the Ted Talk from David Eagleman: http://www.ted.com/talks/david_eagleman_can_we_create_new_senses_for_humans
I’m working on a similar project for my masterthesis :) so look up neuroplasticity and sensory augmentation if you like this kind of topic!
Half of me thinks that humans can do this anyway. I always seem to know which way is North and which way is home. This got really confused in Beijing though where North and home seemed to be the same direction which makes no sense as I live in the UK.
According to Lera Boroditsky, the whole of you can think this. https://psych.stanford.edu/~lera/papers/sci-am-2011.pdf
Very interesting article, thanks for sharing!
I never considered that language can change they way you think even if i speak two languages. What I do know is that when you learn a new language you have to translate everything in your head but as you get more used to speaking in that language you begin to think in that language and don’t have to do the translating anymore.
I think you confuse knowing the road you are on combined with where you were or the time/sun location combo with actual magnetic sensing, which humans don’t do.
I used to think, “Gee, it would be neat to visit the Southern Hemisphere and see The Sun in the northern part of the sky”. Until I visited Rio de Janeiro and my mind automatically placed The Sun in the southern sky. Basically, I was “seeing” The Sun set in the east.
It only needs to buzz if there’s significant movement. Otherwise the senses get numb to the vibration and energy is wasted.
Sounds exactly like the North Paw project. I didn’t see it linked anywhere. http://sensebridge.net/projects/northpaw/
I’ve just spent some time poking my ankle like an idiot, trying to work out the sensory resolution of the skin in that area, I was wondering how much information could be input in this way.
Its called two point discrimination- how far apart two input stimuli have to be to register as two distinct objects:
https://dundeemedstudentnotes.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/untitled-picfewture14.png
Yes, I’m familiar with the concept, although as I understand it that is tested with pressure, rather than vibration. I understand that human skin is remarkably sensitive to vibrations, down to the scale of detecting nanometer scale imperfections in a surface when running the fingertips over things.
why no genitalia?
Because most of us have matured beyond the mental age of 12.
On the other hand, If you are over that mental age perhaps you should not be afraid to have the data in a scientific illustration though.
@Whatnot: No one said anything about being afraid. It’s simply unnecessary in this case. Why include something that’s completely unnecessary in this diagram? Unless you’re a urologist or a 12 year old, you’ll never miss it.
Scientific curiosity? I’m actually curious now what the two point separation sensitivity is near the groin, because there’s a difference between sensitivity for sexual arousal and the actual sensitivity in terms of that two point separation criteria I imagine.
And after looking online I hear there is a separate ‘vibration sense’ and that has its own peaks and limitations:
”
Pacinian corpuscles 60-400Hz; peak at 250 Hz
Meissner’s corpuscles 5-300Hz; most sensitive at 20-50Hz
This means the body is most sensitive to vibrations of around 250Hz
Which seems relevant info
Some links on the difference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamellar_corpuscle (AKA Pacinian )
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactile_corpuscle
So you need vibration motors that have a steady frequency of 250Hz and variable strength I guess. OR experiment with the 50Hz range to see if that works better.
So you need a vibrating fake moustache.
Wouldn’t it be more energy efficient with just one motor but changing the vibration pattern based on the azimuth?
That takes a lot of conscious effort though to interpret it.