AlterEgo is a wearable silent speech output-input device developed by
MIT Media Lab
The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fixed academic disciplines, but draws from ...
.
The device is attached around the head, neck, and jawline and translates your brain speech center impulse input into words on a computer, without vocalization.
Description
The device consists of 7 small electrodes that attach at various points around the jaw-line and mouth to receive the electrical inputs to the muscles used for speech. It looks similar to a sling for the head, neck and jaw.
Background
Scientists Arnav Kapur of Fluid Interfaces group at MIT Media Lab with Shreyas Kapur and
Pattie Maes
Pattie Maes (born 1961) is a professor in MIT's program in Media Arts and Sciences. She founded and directed the MIT Media Lab's Fluid Interfaces Group. Previously, she founded and ran the Software Agents group. She served for several years as b ...
designed the prototype and presented the work at the Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces in March 2018, in
Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...
. They reported that, when testing the accuracy of a classifier trained on data where users were instructed to "read the number to themselves, without producing a sound and moving their lips," they were able to classify the digit (between 0 and 9, i.e., ten classes), with 92 percent accuracy rate.
AlterEgo: A Personalized Wearable Silent Speech Interface
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See Also
*Silent speech interface Silent speech interface is a device that allows speech communication without using the sound made when people vocalize their speech sounds. As such it is a type of electronic lip reading. It works by the computer identifying the phonemes that an ind ...
*Imagined speech
Imagined speech (also called silent speech, covert speech, inner speech, or, in the original Latin terminology used by clinicians, endophasia) is thinking in the form of sound – “hearing” one’s own voice silently to oneself, without the in ...
/ Subvocalization
Subvocalization, or silent speech, is the internal speech typically made when reading; it provides the sound of the word as it is read.Carver, R. P. (1990) Reading Rate: A Comprehensive Review of Research and Theory (1990)Cleland, D. L., Davies, ...
External links
MIT Alterego overview
MIT news
International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces
Fluid Interfaces group
Transcribing the Voice in Your Head
References
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Artificial neural networks
Internet of things
Wearable devices
Wearable computers
Augmentative and alternative communication