Electronic Sensory Expansion

By Dennis Draeger

Sensory substitution is a method of replacing the information flow of one sense with that of another sense. The research dates back to the 1960s and has been used in various ways to help people with physical impairments. Biohackers and other researchers have recently adopted these techniques to enhance and extend the sensory experiences of the non-impaired with potentially practical applications, some of which might even enter the mainstream market.

What’s changing?

Recently, scientists have taught mice to detect infrared light through their sense of touch. They hope to use the findings to help develop prosthetics that send the human brain tactile feedback using infrared light. However, such a sense may possibly, with much further research, be used by security personnel to detect thermal imaging without a video screen.

Other researchers have developed a full body suit with a very different purpose. Called the SpiderSense suit, it…