Technology is just getting weirder and weirder. This is still in the research phase…and is called the “SpeechJammer”. No seriously.
The NY Times explains HERE:
Q. What was the inspiration for this device?
A. One day I just came by a science museum and enjoyed a demonstration about Delayed Auditory Feedback (D.A.F.) at a cognitive science corner. When I spoke into a microphone, my voice came back to me after a few-hundred-millisecond delay. Then, I could not continue to speak any more. That’s fun! (BTW you also may try this at your nearest science museum, because this demonstration is so popular.) They say it is one of the well-known characteristics of the human auditory system. Then I thought, “Oh yeah, it can be applicable to some other domains!”Around that time, my research interest was about developing a system that controls appropriate turn-taking at discussions, and was looking for technologies to enforce some discussion rules for participants. Then I came up with the gun-type SpeechJammer idea utilizing D.A.F. That’s the destiny.
Technology Review by MIT explains the science HERE:
Today, Kazutaka Kurihara at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tskuba and Koji Tsukada at Ochanomizu University, both in Japan, present a radical solution: a speech-jamming device that forces recalcitrant speakers into submission.
The idea is simple. Psychologists have known for some years that it is almost impossible to speak when your words are replayed to you with a delay of a fraction of a second.
Kurihara and Tsukada have simply built a handheld device consisting of a microphone and a speaker that does just that: it records a person’s voice and replays it to them with a delay of about 0.2 seconds. The microphone and speaker are directional so the device can be aimed at a speaker from a distance, like a gun.
