Indo-Asian News Service

New York

Just about anyone could benefit from this system, particularly busy people who need a huge amount of specialised information at their fingertips, but can’t afford to be distracted by conventional memory aids,” said Rich DeVaul, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston. “If all goes well, I expect you could see a product based on this idea in the market within a year or two,” DeVaul said.

DeVaul and colleagues specialise in creating wearable computers. The key to developing such devices is determining the best possible user interface — in this case, spectacles embedded with computer screens. The task was straightforward but not easy. The researchers realised wearable computers that present their data in a distracting manner could prove a hindrance or even a danger to, for example, a wearer driving a vehicle or a soldier engaged in combat. The MIT team hit upon the idea of flashing information at wearers subliminally, so fast it can’t be perceived consciously.

“The notion of a subliminal user interface started as a joke, but the more I researched, the more plausible it became. The only question was could we make it work?” DeVaul said.

The memory glasses use tiny, clip-on computer screens that flash messages visible for only 1/180th of a second. Such data are meant to serve as reminders that jog memory. The glasses are connected to a computer worn in a vest. “The research prototype we are using has about the same computing power and memory as a modern (personal data assistant), with similar power consumption,” DeVaul said. To test the glasses, the researchers chose volunteers seated at desktop computers.

First, the computers displayed 21 name-face pairs that volunteers had two minutes to memorise. Then they had to match names with faces correctly while memory glasses they wore periodically flashed data at them. The glasses flashed three kinds of messages — blank screens, wrong or right names for faces .

Volunteers cued with the right names did better by 50 per cent or more than others given no cues, according to findings researchers presented. “Memory support is a personal issue for me, since I’ve spent a lot of my life forgetting things,” DeVaul joked. He discovered providing incorrect names through subliminal visual cues did not appear to mislead users. It was surprising, but such miscues might have led to memory improvement. This is important, DeVaul said, because any device could make mistakes occasionally and supply wrong, misleading information.