[caption id="attachment_9006" align="alignright" width="289"] "We are used to controlling the world around us to find the settings that suit us best. But while technology advances to aid this, our physical bodies remain the same. What if we had the same control over our senses? If we could adjust them in real time, what experiences would this make possible?”[/caption]

Students from the Royal College of Art in London have created two sensory masks that can heighten perception. The idea behind project Eidos is to simulate superhuman sight and hearing by enhancing visual and audible details. The team hopes the project will eventually allow people to enjoy new and customizable experiences.

Tim Bouckley, Millie Clive-Smith, Mi EunKim, and Yuta Sugawara launched the Eidos project in February 2013, and will be showing off their prototypes June 20^th-30^th at the Royal College of Art summer exhibition in London. One mask fits over the mouth and ears to allow the wearer to hear sound more selectively. The mask is equipped with a directional microphone for isolating specific sounds and neutralizing background noises. The isolated sounds are then experienced by the user through headphones and a mouthpiece. The mouthpiece passes sound from your teeth to the inner ear through bone vibrations, and can give the user a sensation of hearing someone’s voice inside their own head. In tests the wearer was able to perfectly hear a person talking about thirty feet away in a busy train station. The mask zeros in on wherever the user is facing so it sounds as if the person talking is right in front of you. The second mask is a large visor worn over the eyes. A digital camera mounted near the top of the visor captures images that are then processed by software and produce a tracer visual effect. This allows the user to see frame-by-frame progressions of movement.

The sensory enhancements are simple, and a bit two-dimensional; so what can they be used for? The Eidos team has several ideas for applications, but the most practical would be aiding with live audio and video analysis. They suggest the visual enhancement could help athletes analyze and improve technique in real time, or possibly enhance performances such as ballets or fashion shows. The auditory device could change the way we enjoy music concerts, operas, or possibly add another dimension to sound engineering. Another lucrative possibility the team doesn’t mention would be enhancing gaming experiences. These sensory masks seem like the beginning of a more realistic and affordable virtual reality experience. A more immediate use would be to enhance the Google Glass experience with some added sensory devices. Although these prototypes are in their infancy and currently simplistic; the idea behind the project could have some far-reaching applications.