Re-engineering Our Umwelt

When the concept of a sixth sense comes up, it usually carries varied meanings. In the film world, it's a decently-scary movie about Haley Joel Osment telling Bruce Willis he sees dead people. Similarly, people with extra sensory perception (or perhaps those who claim to have it) are also sometimes accredited with a sixth sense. The ability of the mind to perceive the physical locations of the limbs without tactile or visual input (aka proprioception), or a person's innate sense of balance (equilibrioception), is on occasion called the sixth sense. In Buddhism, consciousness alone is enough to be the sixth sense. For some animals, echolocation, electroreception and magnetoception are a legitimate additional sense.

But for humans, when it comes to the scientifically-identified senses (those that receive external stimuli and relay that information to the brain), there are just five, if you are so lucky. Basically, everything we experience is filtered through our senses, which both empowers and limits our reality (our umwelt). However, technology is of course challenging the concept of five senses, and someday having only five senses could be a deficiency.

One common body modification is the insertion of neodynium magnets into the ring finger that allows the wearer to detect all types of electric fields, as well as pick up tiny ferrous objects. However, this should be viewed more as an extension of the touch sense, as the magnet vibrates in the presence of a field, and it is not true electroreception but rather a a post-sensory cognitive determination. Similarly, other finger-worn devices can alert the wearer to things like infrared light or sonar when paired with a separately worn sensor, but once again augments current senses instead of finding new ones.

However, these wearable technologies are just the leading edge of what's possible with wearables. According to neuroscientist David Eagleman, the brain is capable of receiving and translating much more sensory information. It's what makes blind people capable of "sight" by wearing spatial awareness glasses. Visual information is translated to audio data, and eventually blind users can determine the layout of rooms or location of objects.

Now Eagleman and a partner have engineered a vest that translates the sonic word into distinct vibrations that represent the sound wave in motors worn on a vest. A deaf individual wore the vest and after a few days began to recognize the vibration patterns for specific words. This biohack provided an alternative way for him to hear the world.

Eagleman has also fed different types of data streams through the vest: the stock market, Twitter reactions, instrument panel data, and much more can all be experienced. Wearable technologies are expected to explode in the next several years, from a $15 million market in 2014 to one over $1 billion in 2019. It's completely possible the biggest driver for wearable technology adoption is to augment current senses or obtain sensory information that's currently unavailable to humans. Glasses might provide the ability to see radio frequencies. Your watch can vibrate when you've been exposed to too much UV and are at risk of sunburn. Your hat can keep you updated on the football game.

Of course, virtually any sensor could be linked to a vibratory vest or other garment, so it's tough to say they constitute true additional sensors. As of now, this additional sensory input requires specialized clothing. However, there has been considerable interest in 3D printing human tissue as well as circuits. Combine the two and suddenly sensors can be embedded into the skin, making bio-integrated sensor--a la Inspector Gadget--a true possibility.