Passive Haptic Learning

Caitlyn Seim is researching Passive Haptic Learning (PHL) that allows people to learn muscle memory through vibration stimuli without devoting attention to the stimulus. PHL can be facilitated by wearable computers such as gloves with an embedded tactile interface. Previous work on PHL taught users rote patterns of finger movements corresponding to piano melodies. Expanding on this research, we are currently exploring the capabilities and limits of Passive Haptic Learning as we investigate whether more complex skills and meaning can be taught through wearable, tactile interfaces. We are creating and studying a system for passively teaching typing skills, with the ultimate goal of passively teaching Braille typing.

Seim designed a glove which inside each of the five finger holes she has sewn a flat vibration motor. The five tiny vibrators, which perch atop my digits like gemstones on rings, are wired to a microcontroller on the back of my hand. Seim has programmed it to fire the motors in the same sequence that my fingers would strike keys on a piano.

But she does not tell me which tune I will be learning. You will just feel a little buzzing, she says, flipping on the electronics. 

 Thad Starner and his colleagues believe that the repeated buzzing from the glove creates a muscle memory that enables a wearer to learn to play a song with far less practice than it would take without haptic stimulation.They have also studied the glove’s effect on people with spinal cord injuries and found that it can help them regain some sensation and dexterity in their hands. The researchers are now beginning experiments to test whether haptic gloves can teach braille typing and stenography—evidence that the technology could impart not just patterns but also language.

“We don’t know the limits,”  Starner says. “Can we put these sorts of vibration motors on people’s legs and teach them how to dance? Can we teach people how to throw a better baseball?” He mentions a scene from the sci-fi thriller The Matrix in which the film’s heroes, Neo and Trinity, hijack a helicopter: “Can you fly that thing?” Neo asks his right-hand woman. “Not yet,” she says. The film cuts to Trinity’s eyelids flickering as the knowledge pours through a data port at the back of her skull. Seconds later they’re in the air.


SOURCE
http://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-electronics/portable-devices/learn-new-skills-with-superhuman-speed