Wearable computers that transmit tactile signals may allow incidental learning of manual skills without us paying much attention to it
Learning Morse code, on the keystroke rhythms of lines and dots that make it up, may require much less effort and attention than the gate. The trick is to use a wearable computer based on the sense of touch. This is according to a recent pioneer study. The results of the study show that mobile computer devices can, apparently, allow us to acquire manual skills by the way, almost unconsciously, while engaging in our daily routine affairs.
professor Thad Starner from the Georgia Institute of Technology andCaitlin finished, a doctoral student in his lab, conducting experiments in tactile-touch technology, based on the combination of vibrations or other tactile signals in computerized devices. BThe 20th International Conference on Wearable Computers held in Heidelberg, Germany in September 2016, the two announced software they had developed forGoogle Glass, which allows the components of the smart glasses Learn Morse code passively - and judging by the results of the initial research they conducted, it seems that their efforts have been crowned with success.
The study involved 12 subjects who put on the smart glasses while immersed in online computer games. During a series of games that lasted an hour each, half of the participants heard the built-in speaker of Google Glass repeatedly spell words and at the same time felt taps behind the right ear (originating inConverts to the conduction of sounds through the bones of the skull installed in the frame of the glasses) - according to the sequence of dots and lines representing each letter in Morse code. Six other participants in the study were exposed to sounds only, without the corresponding hums.
After each round of games, all participants in the study were asked to tap Morse code letters with their finger on the touch surface of the smart glasses; If, for example, you tapped a “dot-dot” sequence, the letter “i” appeared on the visual display. The short test basically motivated the participants to try to learn the code. At the end of four games of one hour each, the participants who were exposed to the tactile signals were able to type a pangram (a sentence that includes all the letters of the alphabet) with 94% accuracy. The group exposed only to the voices performed the task with 47% accuracy, with its members actually learning solely by trial and error.
The research shows that "it is possible to teach a typing method even without the user paying too much attention to it," Stammer says. According to him, passive learning based on tactile-touch technology can help users acquire in a short time a skill in new methods of entering text using an accompanying keyboard or learning blind Morse code-like typing by clicking on a smart wristwatch. "This could change the way people use portable and wearable computing devices."
The results of the study also "exactly match" results obtained in previous studies of passive learning in tactile-science technology conducted by members of the research team, Seim says. For example, the team developed computerized gloves that transmit vibrations to the fingers of the hands in order to impart to their users muscle memory (motor memory) for playing a certain song on the piano or typing in Braille.
And although the research was conducted on a small scale, it demonstrates how wearable computers may allow their users to "engage in their routine daily affairs, and in the process absorb information and learn new things in practice," says Paul Lukowicz from the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence, which was not involved in the research. If only listening to Mandarin while sleeping could give us fluency in the language.
