<![CDATA[io9: synaesthesia]]> http://tags.lifehacker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/io9.com.png <![CDATA[io9: synaesthesia]]> http://io9.com/tag/synaesthesia http://io9.com/tag/synaesthesia <![CDATA[Take the Simple Synaesthesia Test]]> One of the coolest non-neurotypical features you can have is synaesthesia, the ability to hear colors and taste sounds. Essentially, it's a condition where your sensorium swaps inputs around and gives you a strange and cool view of the world that's different from nearly everyone else's. Though synaesthesia is a rare ability, a researcher in California has discovered that more people have it in a mild form than anyone had ever realized. She devised a simple way to figure out if you are a synathaesthetic, by watching a screen saver with moving dots to see if they make you hear anything. Take the test at New Scientist, and find out if you are a non-neurotypical too. [New Scientist]

]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5033339&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Fully-Functioning Synaesthesia Machine]]> You've probably heard about synaesthesia, the glamorous neurological condition in which people's senses get swapped so that they smell colors and feel words. Now a group of roboticists and bioengineers have got a working prototype of a little machine that gives you the synaesthetic ability to feel things you see. This tiny device attaches to your fingertip, using a camera to translate visual images into feelings by activating a little vibrator attached to the sensitive nerves in your finger. So you wave your hands around and "feel" objects across the street.

The creators of this device, called the Fingersight, write:

Extending the hand's innate ability, we mount miniature cameras on individual fingertips, permitting rapid sweeping through the 3D visual environment at greater distances. The information gleaned from each fingertip camera is fed back to that finger by a small vibrator, so the sense of touch remains related to each finger's individual interaction with the environment. Metaphorically speaking, we have given eyesight to the fingers, and thus we call the resulting capability, "Fingersight."
They've been working on this device and demoing it at conferences for about a year. Can't wait for the consumer version. Whoa, man, I can FEEL the colors on that chair across the room. No really, I can.

Fingersight [IEEE Xplore]

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