restarting the place-memory experiment

Who's interested and has the technique to rebuild the photocell + pressure = vibration prosthetic sense organ that Patricia and Zohar build some years ago in the Memory+Place experiments?

Omar and I are hoping to take it to the next level with Liza, and carry out the actual experiment that David and the group wanted to realize.   My hunch is that it would be straightforward and fun with contemporary tech + the expert knowledge that's available around the TML :)

We're hoping to write up the results of this experiment as soon as possible, in August.  If you're interested in doing a bit of pure research, RSVP Omar Faleh <omar@morscad.com>,  Liza Solomonova <liza.solomonova@gmail.com>, cc. me !
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On 2013-06-29, at 2:13 AM, Navid Navab wrote: If the goal is to sense and re-map proximity or distance to surfaces and objects then I recommend replacing the photocell with either an ultrasound sensor for distances between 0.5-21 ft or an infra red sensor for distances between 0.2-18 ft
— Xin Wei Sha
On 2013-06-30, at 9:10 AM, Omar Faleh wrote: the first phase that we need to to accomplish will involve tracking body proximities using visual tracking (kinekt, camera, etc..) and do a simple software collision detect. once the detection is done we will send a message to an arduino that is placed inside the glove over wifi to turn on the actuator/vibrator . so we will be simulating distance sensors behaviour, minus the actual physical objects that will trigger the proximity sensing. however, there will be other consequent phases for this experiment where we will try other sensing mechanisms.. and of course, any alternatives to arduinos (faster/smaller/more efficient) are more than welcome..
— Xin Wei Sha
I'm tremendously interested in seeing this little arc finish in some insights that we can contribute in conversation with colleagues in the Consciousness and Cognition journal, or SPEP. It's low-hanging fruit as far as craft is concerned, because the craft is child's play for us, but the research questions are deep. Speaking of the research questions, it's crucial to understand the aim of the experiment. please read the http://memoryplace.posthaven.com to build on the large amount of prior work 7 understanding with the Memory Place Identity group. We want a projective ray, along a very narrow cone -- essentially a line oriented along the pointing gesture. And as I said before, no proximity, only on off with threshold. Yeah you heard me right -- just on-off, no floating points between 0.0 - 1.0 ;) There are deep phenomenological and consequently methodological reasons for this that David and the seminar realized. Plus the "actual" experiment is the place-memory experiment that I've described to Omar, Harry, Elena, Liza that we inherit from Patricia+Zohar's work with the Memory Place Identity group. Please read Ed Casey's chapters on body- and especially place-memory, as well as the Lenay-Steiner paper whose experiment we're trying to replicate and then extend. We need to keep in mind that this is technically trivial engineering. And it ought to remain engineering-trivial, at least till we get through the place-memory experiment and so we can understand the timing and calibration issues. So I would simply retain Patricia and Zohar's electronics unless you can improve upon it in less than 4 days calendar time. All other work should go toward the complete experimental apparatus : write code to turn the prosthesis on/off (needs new code, and wireless access to on-body processor) (if necessary use cable tethering the subject! that's OK if that makes it possible to skip a step of acquiring a wifi+processor and simply hack it all in Max via a long cable.) get the camera feed in the TML use it to turn the prosthetic sensor off/on as a function of where the wearer is standing in the TML.
— Xin Wei Sha