00:00:00 When I was Professor Charles Spence an experimental psychologist. I work in Oxford University.
00:00:06 And there on cross modal research laboratory. Have been for the last seventeen years or so a lab that brings together.
00:00:15 Psychologists food scientists chefs composers fashion designers marketeers are all brought together to look at their
00:00:22 how the senses interact and apply the latest insights from brain science to the real world. So how do you know your.
00:00:33 Work or cross model Research Laboratory as a name for the lab
00:00:39 or research laboratory I guess you get across my little bit is a cross between
00:00:44 and modal all the senses that's caught between the senses and how I want to sense can affect another sense.
00:00:50 So if I add a certain fragrance it make make people look more attractive if I change the sound of the crunch it may
00:00:59 change the feel of the crisp visual examples of cross sensory across modal research.
00:01:04 And I want to call these so-called you know your senses what you call this field.
00:01:11 Various names for the sorts of the so rare but there could be a multi sensory perception
00:01:15 and multi sensory integration multisensory research. Is kind of a common term. Always what you're doing. Was my thing.
00:01:27 I guess since undergraduate here back in nineteen eighty something I had to do a project for my undergraduate degree
00:01:36 and didn't really have any idea and earth things that interested me at the time
00:01:40 but somebody put me on to this guy who had a broken T.V.
00:01:43 and For my first project my first experiments were about sort of a breaking televisions
00:01:47 and moving the sounds so I didn't come from the T.V.
00:01:50 They came from somewhere else and just seeing how that impacted people's ability to perceive what was being said
00:01:55 and where they thought things were happening. I don't know that the yeah.
00:02:00 So you can imagine a little apartment or flat bed in the south side of Oxford and you have a T.V.
00:02:08 and Some people come around to watch a movie that could create start rolling and years automatic music.
00:02:15 Everything seems fine and then once the critics of finished and the first actor starts to speak.
00:02:20 Suddenly there's a disconnect because you see their lips moving on the screen
00:02:24 but the horse is coming from the loudspeaker over there.
00:02:26 Your brain says what's going on my senses are coordinated there's like a moment of sort of stopping
00:02:32 and trying to figure out what is going on.
00:02:34 But then a few minutes later suddenly your brain puts it all back together again.
00:02:39 And you start to hear the voices as if they're coming from the lips on the screen that we have a ventriloquist dummy
00:02:44 illusion
00:02:46 and Michael research was looking at that sort of situation how it is that your brain to tax discrepancy between where
00:02:51 it sees things and hears things that high puts it all back together again.
00:02:54 And that is a multisensory perception of multi-sensory integration as I take a voice that I hear over here which I
00:03:00 think belongs in the voice of the lips I see on the screen over there. And your brain can I can use them back together.
00:03:06 And that is the topic of my study and over the years I started on hearing and vision back in the late eighty's
00:03:13 and over the years I brought in the sense of touch and then mood
00:03:16 and everything we can think about doing in the sense of touch. Then come smell that comes taste and pain and so on so.
00:03:21 Adding senses to the portfolio as the years go by so fast and hard to say depends who you ask if you are.
00:03:33 Ask the people in the lab as I do. The reverse. I just ask questions they don't have answers but at least five.
00:03:43 I could find I could reference to people who say as many as forty three.
00:03:47 So that's kind of the problem of definition of what is a sense certainly hearing vision touch taste
00:03:53 and smell what everyone agrees on touch taste smell hearing and vision.
00:04:00 One of the five basic senses that I think everyone agrees are five senses.
00:04:04 Beyond that you might think about the sense of a kind of your body in space and how it's moving.
00:04:12 You might think about kind of pheromone all sense of the chemical communication between creatures of the same species
00:04:21 we know exists in animals maybe exists and humans maybe not.
00:04:25 And from there you'll find others who will talk about pain is that a separate sense. Or is it part of touch.
00:04:33 Some you might even claim as and a magnetic sense or.
00:04:38 Or a sixth sense a feeling of there someone's looking at me or I know what's going on
00:04:43 and the list goes on some I want to say. Something that.
00:04:55 Not in the way it's used in and marketing
00:04:58 and so I work with car companies that are sold like cars having her sixth sense.
00:05:04 About what people normally mean by that is just kind of an increased awareness.
00:05:10 Almost like a spooky awareness of I think it is quite high. You know that you know that someone is looking at you say.
00:05:15 So I think we are can be pick up things and be aware of things without realizing how we know
00:05:21 and sometimes information comes in not through the sense we imagine create magine we can see most of the stuff we know
00:05:27 about whereas in fact maybe it's that it's a subtle smiles that can tell you whether somebody else has just come back
00:05:35 from the pub always been watching a scary movie whether of you later on something else.
00:05:39 These are kind of subtle cues that sometimes get dominated by the higher senses of vision
00:05:45 and yet can nevertheless feed into our judgments
00:05:47 and sometimes because that feeling of knowing at least translates as everybody.
00:06:01 What do you think is the most important. More important.
00:06:08 I think definitely is a kind of sensory hierarchy some senses are more important than others.
00:06:16 Most of the research most of the writing.
00:06:19 Most of our introspection tells us that vision is the dominant sense the most important one and certainly
00:06:25 when you look inside the brain.
00:06:28 You'll find more of the cortical real estate is given over to processing what we see down to any
00:06:33 or all of the other senses.
00:06:35 So the numbers from the neuroscientists would be something like fifty to fifty five more than half of your brain is
00:06:41 involved in processing visual inputs from your eyes just ten fifteen percent of your brain is involved in hearing
00:06:49 or in touch and eye comes to smell or taste.
00:06:52 You're down to one or two percent in terms of our shop or aim is given every chance it's clear that vision dominates
00:06:57 and yet most of our research last twenty years has been trying to demonstrate how important the other senses are too
00:07:05 and that depending on the sub sorts of questions you ask all the situations you're in in fact what we smell what we
00:07:11 hear what we feel
00:07:12 and even what we taste can be far more important than we realize not just making the dominant sense
00:07:18 but it means more information has more value to be had to stimulating the other senses.
00:07:23 Even though we don't think about it very often we don't talk about them so much and they are of a visual. Yeah.
00:07:37 So OK yes. So. And we we. It's possible to use more of our senses. Or is it. Both. So.
00:08:10 Why not just stay with the visual well as a number of answers to why engaging their senses is interesting
00:08:16 and ultimately important from a research trajectory so personally then there's a lot of open space to be tackled.
00:08:26 There are many many very clever people who just study vision who just study hearing.
00:08:30 But having so many look at have a sense is connect being that kind of jack of all trades knowing a little bit about
00:08:36 each of the senses opens up a huge kind of Harry research space.
00:08:41 And that's really exploded over the last quarter of a century. So important in that way but more generally.
00:08:50 So I think if you go back to when I arrived in Oxford in the eighty's there were.
00:08:55 There was a scientist who just next to him was a scientist who just started hearing.
00:09:01 And they haven't spoken to each other for you know decades literally that some falling out.
00:09:06 And neither thought that they lost anything by not speaking to it or I can just focus on them for my whole life.
00:09:11 That's all I need to know about what that guy over there does is irrelevant to me it's a different sense.
00:09:17 So I think was
00:09:18 or was coming up we've seen since sort of the seventy's as people start to get interested in how the senses interact
00:09:24 normally hearing and vision it's the easiest to study the most commonly studied these the higher the rational senses.
00:09:31 Then as the years go by people start to bring in touch as a spatial sense tells us where things are.
00:09:37 I know only then do you find the only of the last in this century. Do you find people looking at smell and taste.
00:09:46 Why because they are maybe sort of harder to study your subjects adapt they get full up it's messy.
00:09:52 I can't just put in front of a computer.
00:09:53 You know where you go mixing smells and tastes and flavors and food that's much more challenging
00:09:58 and requires a broader skill.
00:10:00 That and for that reason it has been sort of neglected and until very recently but I see it
00:10:05 and are on a mission to try and convince my colleagues that are the lower senses so-called the smell
00:10:11 and taste on the touch are much more important or exciting to have a profound impact on our lives.
00:10:18 My colleagues have met maybe just smile at me and maybe say now that I would stop hearing and vision
00:10:24 but I have to Mystic that as years go by more and more researchers will start to engage with the other senses
00:10:29 and that will be the front here that we're sort of at the moment
00:10:33 and I see some of them starting to do research on taste in a way that they've never done before.
00:10:38 And I see a huge kind of public interest in. Everyone likes to eat and drink. You know you think it's a folder.
00:10:48 That's right. And I want to time to that we. So. I think if you go back in a way.
00:11:11 So there's a few three trends kind of kind of coalescing at the same time.
00:11:16 On the wall and you sort of find I think about what two thousand
00:11:23 or so you'll find people saying a sensory overload is just too much information to me screens too many mobile devices
00:11:29 beeping in and flashing to me videos of that's all just too much information I can't really capers
00:11:35 and stressful just being anywhere but
00:11:38 when you break that down what you find is it's mostly just from hearing vision is too much technology allows you to
00:11:43 present more and more audiovisual stuff.
00:11:46 But it doesn't do anything for your sense of touch is doing things your sense of smell or taste
00:11:51 and it's that kind of realisation it's kind of sensory imbalance almost that we're overloading these higher rational
00:11:58 senses at the neglect. At the cost of our more emotional senses.
00:12:03 And there are some benefits each sense probably is good at delivering certain kinds of benefits or awards or
00:12:09 or things making it much easier to deliver those through through touch and smell
00:12:14 and maybe seas of society at large moving toward sort of aroma therapy mass arge spa treatments is going to be a growth
00:12:20 area and maybe it's partly about bringing back the touch and the smell in a way it was being missed
00:12:28 or lost from society at large I think also partly about the growth of the star chef and everyone loves.
00:12:37 Most people love to watch cookery shows the ready kept on the television on without seeing some cookery show
00:12:41 or other that's been a huge explosion of interest.
00:12:44 And those chefs have over the last decade a number of them engage more with the senses
00:12:49 and there was a gate with the senses but they're on T.V.
00:12:52 and I thinking more how to not just engage the senses on the plate or in the glass
00:12:56 but in the environments in which they serve their diners. I'm trying to figure out the sort of science behind it.
00:13:03 They do into it if it artistically or science here to help support the sorts of design decisions they're making
00:13:09 and then you have the rise of a kind of a millennial Zz who are from what all the marketeers will tell as they don't
00:13:15 want products and things they want experiences experiences that they can share.
00:13:19 And those experiences can be delivered through smell and taste and other kinds of sensory Soria.
00:13:27 Sensory experiences multisensory events. Now I understand. That might die. But. So. If you give it a name and.
00:14:02 Like as we are you probably knew. I certainly hope so that the kind of research we do and the people we talk to.
00:14:19 Well I've become in some of them to think more carefully about how their own sense for worlds
00:14:25 and how the senses are engaged in a day to day basis. I think we're seeing a bit of a shift also in a way.
00:14:33 From what we've had sort of decades of what's called the Experience Economy companies brands from from Starbucks to
00:14:39 Lego to Disney.
00:14:41 They're not selling your product anymore they're selling you experiences
00:14:44 and that's been a hugely powerful driver in marketing and you can't open a magazine
00:14:49 or go into any shopping centers without somebody telling you I'm going to give you the experience.
00:14:55 That experiences of a car in the city multisensory of his last few decades felt like it sort of companies who eat who
00:15:01 are delivering the experience of living the senses. To us manipulate you to make you buy more.
00:15:07 What's I think changing now and what I see a lot happening in the U.K. Especially in London is kind of the rise of.
00:15:14 Of what some are calling kind of sense blur ration.
00:15:18 I mean it's kind of it's almost like the public you and I taking control back sort of curious about our senses
00:15:25 and wanting to experience more experience differently
00:15:29 and this explains the rise of everything from your classical music concerts you listen to while tasting matching wines
00:15:38 perf human concerts chocolate with the way that contemporary jazz
00:15:44 or the Tate Museum in London last year had the tapes and sorrier for paintings from the collection that.
00:15:50 Two
00:15:51 or three thousand people got to to view while at the same time feeling some virtual touch smelling some perf human maybe
00:15:57 even eating a chocolate. It's connecting the senses in.
00:16:00 New way
00:16:01 and he sort of feels like it's going the artists of the colony artists experienced designers chefs who are who are
00:16:08 exploring the space and almost given the chance to to make new connections between our senses.
00:16:15 Is that you know exploration rather than exploitation I guess that kind of shift I think
00:16:20 and it's a shift that's also built on going from kind of obvious sensory interactions which I mean things like you go
00:16:30 to the Rainforest Cafe in London and it's like a rain forest so you look at the greenery.
00:16:35 And you get a thunderstorm and some rain and maybe a smell of the green notes or it's going to obvious in a way.
00:16:43 Yeah I got it. Or you know it.
00:16:45 It is in a lot of the top restaurants are trying to picnics in there
00:16:48 and picnics that have the smell the sounds of the picnic of nature and the basket.
00:16:51 Yeah it's a works and gives you all the senses it's kind of obvious
00:16:54 and what's more interesting is the more kind of synesthetic. Kind of connections aren't so obvious.
00:17:02 So for example that most of us will connect us with roundness.
00:17:09 With pinky red color with high pitch or sweet taste with around.
00:17:15 And most people say bitter tasting foods dark chocolate coffee is angular that's going to surprising almost sense that
00:17:23 a connection between our senses hadn't realized yet.
00:17:26 And you can ask your friends and they all say the same
00:17:28 and they're also these surprising almost synesthetic connections between tastes
00:17:33 and smells colors shapes textures feelings as we pick up on those new connections
00:17:39 and we're in this environment where consumers want to explore the senses and we have the artists
00:17:45 and the chefs who want to play
00:17:47 and deliver new stuff to consumers things that really were so rich Next us for this whole new way of engaging because
00:17:56 it is it's almost sense that a connection. That's why all of us need to try to. Elf.
00:18:01 To see if it might to my brain work like that too.
00:18:04 Or is it just jaws and what are strange connections might be there and where were the fun and the size stars.
00:18:17 So it's all the same. Yeah. Where does Sirius that is. Really are so serious. Yeah and I just wonder.
00:18:26 I mean for the perception of people. For people to do. To join this idea.
00:18:35 Just so far you can just get people and there's nothing there's no difference or you can research
00:18:43 and make your own theories. About. Which model.
00:18:51 Doesn't really influence the way we live and how we are in a serious way because. So so far.
00:19:03 If I think sweetness is about.
00:19:06 What you know of what you might do if you are a chocolate manufacturer for example
00:19:14 and you're being told by government
00:19:15 or out of the goodness of your own heart you think you want to reduce some of the unhealthy ingredients in the foods
00:19:20 you present to the market. If I could tell you that. By making your chocolates rounder.
00:19:27 They will taste sweeter to people. So you can reduce the sugar content but keep the perception the same.
00:19:34 That something people might want to know about and certainly do if I can tell you from any other food
00:19:39 or drink product that by changing the shape of your product out the logo on the label design.
00:19:43 You can set expectations in the mind of those you're serving bacon and hands that taste perception.
00:19:49 To that brand loyalty that can maybe help you to just to reduce these unhealthy ingredients by his tricks of the mind
00:19:56 but it's something that you know pretty much every large food and beverage come. Is interested in.
00:20:02 They know that if they actually reduce sugar of the actually reduce salt
00:20:05 and fat consumers will say just stop it you're spoiling my favorite brand put back the way it was now well being told
00:20:11 by government we have to do this and we need a good thing for society at large. Maybe.
00:20:15 So these kind of tricks of the mind by changing the color by changing the shape by eating while listening to some sort
00:20:20 of music that can bring out sweetness.
00:20:22 Potentially at least offers a way of keeping everyone happy making your foods healthier.
00:20:29 Without changing the taste for the consumer.
00:20:31 But of course in the first instance the company will go puff ridiculous what you mean I'm not much of that round going
00:20:39 taste sweeter. If you go. Up to eleven leave it surprising. So we go through. Yeah.
00:20:46 So we do experiment experiment experiment publish them in scientific journals
00:20:49 but no one ever reads those which is where then the interface with the chefs
00:20:53 or experienced designers comes in if we can do large events where we have thousands of people coming through
00:20:59 and they get to experience for themselves that when I play this music.
00:21:03 What you're tasting taste sweet on a play that music suddenly taste more bitter than that's was where kind of
00:21:09 convincing people
00:21:10 and from that really is fun enjoyable engaging multisensory that sense permission from that that's the kind of STARTING
00:21:16 POINT. To take the science that we do.
00:21:20 Which means boring
00:21:21 and dry put it in the hands of creative chefs for mixologists storks beers designed to turn science
00:21:27 and something fun exciting enjoyable and tasty and then expose people to it
00:21:32 and through that is a proof of principle that then the big brands the lions the hospital trusts come they experience it
00:21:40 and they never of that do it by themselves.
00:21:42 But they experience at a restaurant or in these events and then they go away and innovate and Reza case in point.
00:21:48 Just take British Airways. Yeah line.
00:21:52 There it's a long haul flights from eighteen months ago we were doing tastings with music for some of the.
00:22:00 They came along they got it and then they went back and changed the music in the long haul flight so that
00:22:05 when you order a meal in the airplane.
00:22:07 You can plug into the headset in the side of your seat
00:22:09 and I saw one music channel specially designed to enhance the taste of the food that they're serving so by music.
00:22:18 For everybody. You. Also if you can change every every perception or every experience of one of your senses.
00:22:32 Or what happens to your your feeling of truth because I know I like drug use.
00:22:49 Well your idea of juggling the way and it says you like mine. So you also.
00:23:01 I mean I guess what is true that we all psychologists food critic why next.
00:23:05 But regular consumer like believe we can for example just taste the drink in the glass of the food on the plate
00:23:12 and all of us believe that the chair you're sitting on the lighting that the music has an impact.
00:23:18 Now didn't feel that way it feels like I'm tasting what's in the glass and you can't convince me otherwise.
00:23:22 There are many chefs and the people we talk to who are of that opinion and intuitive glass of sherry myself
00:23:28 and yet I know when we do the research and we measure how I give you a squeeze of chocolate and I say how sweet.
00:23:34 Was it from one but it was very better to ten which is the sweetest chocolate you've ever had. I know that.
00:23:39 I can guarantee that every single person eight out of ten say or eight hundred
00:23:45 or one thousand will agree that this chocolate.
00:23:49 We're going to sweeter taste sweeter to them
00:23:51 when the sweet music's playing the most as we will deny that music is having an impact that also that
00:23:57 when I tell have schools.
00:24:00 Those My sweet music those who are busy music now see the difference and that is the proven I think in a way.
00:24:06 I can't you can't turn water into wine. There are limits. So these are mostly kind of notches.
00:24:11 If I give you food that's a bittersweet like dark chocolate or a black coffee with a sugar.
00:24:17 I can make it ten percent sweeter.
00:24:18 Or ten percent more bitter but I can give you a glass of water
00:24:22 and some have changing music by changing the lighting make you think you're tasting wine or anything else.
00:24:26 So there are limits to a sort of truth of your senses.
00:24:31 But it's always flexible there's always modifiable but it never fully never fully you know. Because it is only.
00:24:44 It's been said if it were if you take the example of the classic example of you get the wine expert
00:24:51 and you get them a glass of white wine and you add some color less total US red dye. So it looks like a red wine.
00:24:58 If you can convince that expert and many experts have been convinced that what they smell.
00:25:01 Are all the red wine aromas that chocolate or tobacco and stone fruits that feels like feeling.
00:25:09 Mixed with that red color make a smell citrus on straw or on honey on and battery notes are the red color
00:25:16 and suddenly it smells completely different to the expert.
00:25:18 You could call it fooling you could call it trickery
00:25:21 and that maybe there is no absolute truth of our senses because we always eat
00:25:27 and drink experience things in some environment in that environment whatever it is wherever we are the clothing to food
00:25:33 to cocktails to coffee. To a car sales room.
00:25:37 Roy getting sensory inputs and they're all really having some impact on others.
00:25:40 We all deny it and it's our job kind of society as a psychologist not to believe you
00:25:45 when you tell me this is what it is influencing your behavior.
00:25:48 Why you like something more than another but instead to measure and observe your behavior and your performance
00:25:54 and demonstrate that sometimes the way feels to us is not the way it actually is and it's to pick those examples and.
00:26:00 Everyday Life. I think. You're Northern European as well.
00:26:03 So you'd understand the problems all rose a paradox
00:26:06 and everyone has that experience they go on holiday to the sunshine to the Mediterranean and that glass of red here
00:26:12 and taste beautiful cheeses marvelous Is this the sausages are fabulous so good in fact.
00:26:17 And so cheap you want to buy some and bring them back home.
00:26:19 And you bring that wine back home and on a cold winter's night you open it with your friends to swish.
00:26:24 Recount tales and it tastes different.
00:26:26 It doesn't taste like the same wine
00:26:28 and everyone is at a version of that experience in Taiwan they come to England the tea tastes amazing they take it back.
00:26:34 It doesn't taste different in South America wife is from it's a cottage
00:26:38 and on the Colombian coast things taste different now than they do in the capital Bogota. And I wanted to experience.
00:26:42 What is it.
00:26:43 It's not that the wine has changed all that has changed is the mood that you're in
00:26:47 and the atmosphere in which you eat and drink. And.
00:26:52 Can you say that the way we see things and is very very broken is that you know. So let's have a question. Whoa.
00:27:17 Why do we need so many senses wooden just one day.
00:27:20 But after five or six or seven
00:27:22 or thirty forty three because you're more senses we've got more trouble your brain has trying to combine what it hears
00:27:28 what it sees with what it takes so the fewer the senses the simpler the kind of computational problem to be solved.
00:27:34 You might think. So there is a cost to adding more senses.
00:27:37 On why do we have so many and why do we have the ones that we do.
00:27:42 Well maybe it's something about you know I say Gee isn't dark ages meaning the vision wasn't so good so other senses
00:27:48 came out and developed and then the lights came back on as it were and suddenly you got two senses and
00:27:53 but in fact I think the real answer is that each and every one of our senses is noisy we are.
00:28:00 Biological sensing system. So it's always noisy noise machine. Like a computer.
00:28:08 And that noise in the system means that sometimes the thoughts alarms.
00:28:12 I think I saw something that I thought I heard my name
00:28:16 but no so all the time this kind of false alarms each of our senses is just noise in and sending these false alarms.
00:28:23 And if we only had one sense to go on would be perpetually distracted by these laws that would actually have something
00:28:30 happen. However if I think I hear something I think I saw something.
00:28:35 It's very unlikely that two of my senses accidentally fired at the same time and if I thought I saw
00:28:41 or heard something and they were both from the right. I think more likely so by having different senses.
00:28:47 But each we assume have passed separate noise variation then by kind of pulling two senses.
00:28:53 I get a much better index of what's happening in the world and can ignore more the noise of my sensory operators.
00:29:03 Since you have the better in the sense that's part of the advantage of illusion really speaking
00:29:08 and it also probably is the case that each of our senses is good at something
00:29:14 and each of our senses is good at something different.
00:29:17 So I want to know what something is where it is my eyes are as good as any sense if I want to know
00:29:23 when did something happen.
00:29:24 How quickly did it change my ears are much better than a mechanical rather than a chemical transduction then
00:29:31 when it comes to something like. Mate selection.
00:29:35 Who should I get married to or not really my nose tells me about the immune compatibility between me
00:29:41 and this other person in a way that I can't see that a cop feels or smell is useful
00:29:45 or smell is useful if you think about if I presented you with a plate of beautiful fish.
00:29:50 It looks fabulous all the trimmings. But it just smells a bit.
00:29:55 It is coughs then your nose would dominate and you would not eat that thing no matter how hard. Beautiful.
00:30:00 It looks so small then becomes dominant for avoiding poisons perhaps to make make selection and taste true.
00:30:07 I'm going to warn you. I'm going to get warn you.
00:30:10 Or provide different kind of window into the world
00:30:13 and so for you know what I want to know what should I eat what might poison me what will be neutral. If I me.
00:30:19 Give me the calories and the and the protein and the minerals this taste is really the only true sense
00:30:26 and picking up those qualities and yet revolution we've learned that I can't put everything into my mouth
00:30:32 and seal it taste like that would be too time consuming better use my eyes.
00:30:36 To predict which trees have the right Proops learn the.
00:30:40 Fruits go from green and sour to read and write and then I know by looking. Where I can get the best tasting food.
00:30:47 So all the senses working together and realizing that each one is dominant and good different kind of thing.
00:30:53 So there's a sense. To this a sense that been there has been talk or.
00:31:02 A magnetic sense that it was some some some birds maybe some other creatures have this
00:31:07 and some navigate towards North know
00:31:10 and you quite how it turns out that they that they have some kind of magnetic sense
00:31:13 and the BE A few suggestions in the end even various team scientific journals of humans to some humans have some
00:31:21 vestige of a. Magnetic sense.
00:31:26 That's one that is on the cusp where would be nice if we could all have a really fully functioning magnetic sense.
00:31:34 So I wouldn't need to read a map of all that stuff I could just know how to get home and leaders know that way.
00:31:42 Two hundred miles. Would be great. So that would be one that we could say we miss it is clearly there.
00:31:48 In other species and some of my colleagues in Germany have been trying to train us to have an extra sense.
00:31:55 So they might they be putting about on people in Germany.
00:32:00 So computer coding in colleagues put a belt on people and then vibrates and where it vibrates tells you where north is.
00:32:07 And they get you what you wear this vibrating belt for six weeks two months with the hope being that after that time.
00:32:14 You may have learnt almost
00:32:15 when to put that vibration as kind of a magnetic cue we were talking about this meeting is there's no I don't need. We.
00:32:40 Three.
00:32:45 Oh you can you can educate the senses I suspect in this case it will always remain always feel like touch
00:32:54 and they want to feel like and you sense I guess. So we can educate the senses to be better.
00:33:01 Most of the research is in the case of those who've lost the sense those who are blind or deaf.
00:33:05 Can they use some sort of sensory substitution system to use one of their remaining senses in order to make up for the
00:33:12 loss of vision say in their tactile visual vests.
00:33:18 There are glasses that have little sort of cameras on the side that may change what you see into what a sighted person
00:33:26 would see they'll change it to sound the question what sort of sound should you happen.
00:33:30 And those blind people who hear the world as a sighted person see do they really see.
00:33:37 Or do you have to have these things in order to actually see that stuff Lear very philosophical question about what
00:33:42 does it mean to see but I suspect mostly it's about.
00:33:47 You can train the senses to do more stuff better stuff but it's probably impossible to to create a new science.
00:33:57 Or to take what existing sense and. Turn into something else and it will always stay.
00:34:03 I think it was so when we look at the reasons. Now we enter a new era where what we expect or more.
00:34:22 Will be that will be in time. So looking forward and terms of how it will be sense multisensory stimulated.
00:34:43 I think the answer to that question in a minute maybe partly about desire more people would like to happen
00:34:48 and how they'd like their senses to be stimulated. But it's as much a matter of technology.
00:34:53 How can you deliver sensations differently.
00:34:56 And I think the last ten fifteen years a lot of our research on Touch say for example has been driven by the fact that
00:35:02 now you know.
00:35:04 Tactile technology tactile stimulation mobile devices in screens in cars where you name it is now that the technology
00:35:12 exists and maybe now there are three billion fiber ating devices in people's pockets. That wasn't a cased decade ago.
00:35:19 So suddenly the technologies allowed us to stimulate the skin in new ways that all these things didn't exist ten
00:35:26 fifteen years ago and they ubiquitous now. So that technology allows us to simulate a sense of touch more.
00:35:32 Hopefully better and the question is how what benefits can we deliver.
00:35:36 Is there something about mechanical digital touch that is never the same as a real.
00:35:44 Personal Touch or can we simulate it all and I suspect there may some of our research.
00:35:50 I suspect suggests the stuff we read suggests that maybe you cannot simulate.
00:35:56 So real touch the Midas touch the gentle casual touch.
00:36:00 That will make you feel better pick up some of these change return your live reports on time big get a bigger tape that
00:36:06 kind of casual touch is kind of emotional use of the sense of touch.
00:36:11 You might say could I deliver that my just touch it seems to make the world a better place by by tactile vast Well
00:36:20 having us. Just set up by breakers just do that. It turns out.
00:36:23 No it doesn't work that seems to be something special about real human to human touch the mother's touch is kind of a
00:36:32 name that. Was at my desk in my seventy touch turns to gold the.
00:36:36 Way it works in the hands of social psychologists is that if. You do a study and you just gently touch somebody.
00:36:43 On the shoulder be at the waitress in the restaurant the little library in the library be the person on the street then
00:36:51 those who are gently touched. Who have had their eyes at Midas touch in fact show more pro-social behavior.
00:36:59 So they will return alive Reeboks they will pay their fines they will give a bigger TEP they will be more social beings
00:37:06 just from this into personal touch because this is kind of personal touches so beneficial in some sense.
00:37:13 Those who are not developing the technology to vibrate our pockets our hands are wondering could we deliver that
00:37:19 through your touch screen your your your i Pad your your mobile device.
00:37:25 And it turns out so far no one's been able to do that. Maybe there's just something about real touch that's missing.
00:37:32 Maybe when when you feel the touch of another person. It's got a certain speed.
00:37:38 Maybe get a certain temperature and I know if I look in your and you're hairy skin.
00:37:42 I know exactly the speed that your skin likes to be touched. Maybe it's not copying that who knows.
00:37:49 So it's a technology that is in the world of touch and is doing that already. Then if you think about smell.
00:37:55 Where are you going to. So you say well we see evidence it. In fifty years. Or we might imagine that.
00:38:21 Maybe every device will have will be touch enabled in some way.
00:38:26 Everything from the cutlery that you hold
00:38:28 or you go to the restaurant to the car that you drive who are still driving to any.
00:38:35 Phone Smartphones tablets computers. Maybe the whole B. Touch enabled. Through the chairs we sit on.
00:38:43 You know you already have a massage chair so I don't like that for you because feature of any thing that they're
00:38:48 actually work with love or vibrating the table so touch I think will be everywhere
00:38:54 and it will be used to for a variety of purposes to transmit information.
00:38:58 So everything around this very situation will.
00:39:07 Or will it will give us information something or maybe any digital device will have some that we interact with.
00:39:17 Will have some sort of tactile functionality.
00:39:21 Not just the feel of the thing itself
00:39:22 but it will be unable to vibrate to give us a Lucian's of touch to give the perception of temperature or wetness.
00:39:31 For example.
00:39:32 So working out with clothes companies in thinking about the transition that most people are increasingly doing their
00:39:38 shopping online and that's fine for books and C.D.'s when it comes to clothing.
00:39:42 Also Marc and I want to feel both average going to be like.
00:39:45 Our bit less comfortable doing online coaching that there's a lot of interest in how you can.
00:39:50 And able kind of technology we have a home our laptops and computers.
00:39:55 Is there some way we can trick the brain into giving you the feeling of real materials.
00:40:00 And by so doing kind of in crease sales of online sales of clothing and other stuff.
00:40:05 So how do we virtually create touch and texture. Any kind of tribute.
00:40:09 I know that if I if I give you food to eat with heavier cutlery than it will taste better to you be willing to pay more
00:40:16 for it. And now somebody in Far East has created a digital fork. That by some sort of vibration and stimulation.
00:40:24 It will feel have you to you.
00:40:26 It's not literally have you just tricked your brain by stimulating the sense of touch in a new way to give you the
00:40:31 illusion of weight.
00:40:32 That something ought to be built into everything's we know already that if you see something like that a Bang
00:40:37 and Olufsen remote control here let's not let's not let's not on health issue we say there's no OK.
00:40:45 Everyone's going to be upset that we don't studies with certain people your books and your polls.
00:40:53 And just drop a little white in the bottom of the orbit and people believe we're going to be full or soon
00:40:58 or your brain can't separate the weight on the hand from the weight of the thing that's in the package.
00:41:04 Have you got really helps another technology to do that.
00:41:06 So I imagine any sort of advice would be thinking how do I engage more senses because this is what the sensory
00:41:10 marketers are saying whatever product or service.
00:41:13 You're Levering engage more of your consumer senses touch is an obvious one is it has been neglected for so long
00:41:19 and yet it's sort of our biggest sense eighteen to twenty percent of our only mass given over to the skin
00:41:25 and it can deliver some of the fact if I don't it benefits make us feel good if we just don't relate it right yet
00:41:33 but everything you say so it's all about the benefit for.
00:41:41 That I hear a lot of arguments that governments can benefit from because we can influence people.
00:41:51 But what will be there all benefit for mankind and that. I think something like. Well good position.
00:42:03 A lot of people are worried about their weight if I give you a simple trick to be satisfied with less food which
00:42:10 involves you incurring a little lead weight around and putting it in whatever probably you're going to eat.
00:42:14 That's only we can all use in an enabler for all clearly companies might use that for their own means and ends
00:42:19 but it's something we cannot live inside itself it is flexible in its usage.
00:42:27 And it is something anybody can apply to their daily life doesn't doesn't quite high technology does some of them some
00:42:34 starting to do so you say now this year twenty sixteen will be sky books published on the topic of Bowl food eating
00:42:45 food out of a bowl five cookbooks whole trend a wave of interest what was going on just food in a bowl.
00:42:54 I don't get it but think about that.
00:42:56 That's a lot of sensory design
00:42:57 and it's with a bowl the more likely to hold the bowl in your hands of you hold the bowl you feel the way to feel the
00:43:02 weight you're satisfied with the last
00:43:04 or the whole food movement is around trying to eat healthier eat less in a way can control aware of your weight
00:43:11 and controlling it.
00:43:12 And so have you have a bowl in the hand helps that it's a warm bell maybe makes the world seem better.
00:43:18 And that you can smell the contents more tricks to brenne different way.
00:43:21 So there are trends that are out there already that people are engaged in that you can reframe in terms of this sort of
00:43:26 sensory sensory design we didn't realize but you do realize you can measure it
00:43:31 and what could be done through to I'm thinking a lot about a tour in Saudi Arabia
00:43:37 and by the way that pediatricians talking about infant touch.
00:43:42 So it's good for my wife's not here moment but she was premature by about three months.
00:43:49 And actually popped out and so she's about this big..
00:43:53 To have thought about here and I think that's because as a premature infant in the one hundred sixty S.
00:44:00 You're stuck in an incubator and left you were touched. It turns out if your premise your baby a difficult birth.
00:44:07 If you're touched.
00:44:08 If you get this effect of touch message in his early months you will develop a healthier normal weight with less
00:44:17 illness as a result.
00:44:19 So I believe passionately early life touch is very important
00:44:23 and it can be lost that a lot of parents will not touch their offspring both normal weight
00:44:30 and the kind of pre-term ones
00:44:31 and yet from all the studies I see you have a profoundly beneficial effect both on bonding both on quality of sleep on
00:44:38 on all. Sort of health and disease prevention it all comes just to stimulating the touch.
00:44:44 Maybe releasing some rumors well.
00:44:47 And I'm going around the world trying to tell the pediatricians this is important
00:44:51 and you should be at educating young mothers on the benefits of a personal touch. It's been neglected.
00:44:57 And it's in all of our hands literally to to do something about it. However gentle.
00:45:05 Because it will never be it always being.
00:45:13 As you we were always has more than we used to so maybe it's more rebalancing
00:45:25 and I think this is a reality where do we also get richer experience.
00:45:30 I say a more different kind of different balance of sensory experience
00:45:35 and in particular I want to say more connection with emotional side of our being.
00:45:40 Of the world that is smell taste
00:45:42 and touch these are the emotional senses with much more direct links to sort of mood and emotion.
00:45:48 Than our hearing
00:45:49 and vision have to go over to the back of the had then come so so it puts in touch with our motion side I think that's
00:45:54 a good thing that's been neglected and I can point to these many examples you know from that from the infants to their.
00:46:00 Old age pensioners to those in hospital who. Who.
00:46:05 If you can engage in the emotional sciences more intelligently designed. Lead to benefits.
00:46:11 Wherever you look you can pretend infants.
00:46:14 Old people are wrinkly
00:46:15 and then want to touch them through you know kids in hospital who are so petrified if you could patting dog
00:46:21 and talking to the right.
00:46:23 And yet that relaxation will come through touch with another object far outweighs the other things
00:46:30 and does lead to improved.
00:46:32 Recovery
00:46:32 and I think across the across all the sciences you can see how being more aware of the impact of all of our senses
00:46:41 being more aware of the sensory imbalance we can cause ourselves into largely as real technology can lead to a better
00:46:48 more filled world as a result. So. Is it possible that in the future we will give more value.
00:47:05 Senses for all experiences. Right now. For example in court with an eye witness is possible.
00:47:24 So I think looking forward. Are. OK With the increased value put on the other senses. For sure.
00:47:35 I am also kind of conscious in a way that it's almost no matter what I do no matter what the research shows.
00:47:43 Nevertheless there is this kind of recurrent bias saw a belief that there will always bring it back to the visual in a
00:47:51 way so I see it's a work in and fashion stalls and also situation.
00:48:00 And where I can prove that adding the other senses makes the experience better.
00:48:06 And yet I'm very aware that the consumer or person at home or that company will attribute that improvement to vision.
00:48:13 Just take an action about the Euro football a moment.
00:48:16 I know if I can give you the technology exists to give you a little plug into the side of your T.V.
00:48:20 That were released the smell of fresh cut grass. So you can see them playing on the screen.
00:48:24 You know the smell of fresh cut grass.
00:48:26 I asked you homeless to learn the experience how to enjoy the game of football the ratings would go up.
00:48:32 I believe with a cent. Unable to T.V. and Yet I think after watching the game.
00:48:39 I could show you your results went up you liked it more but you say no I just it was just a good game.
00:48:44 I can see it now and it was really good football.
00:48:47 So always misattribute the causes of our experience to the wrong things and if. That's a challenge I think.
00:49:02 And it's a rare. I guess up from five or ten years ago that I used to believe.
00:49:05 Well if I can prove it then the world will change if I can show you the graph
00:49:09 and say OK look is how much Europe peoples experience went up how much sales went up.
00:49:14 You have to believe that you might say well is did you do your experiment well but once you believe me on that score.
00:49:21 If it's significant.
00:49:21 That's it time to change the way we're doing things
00:49:23 and yet through experience I realize that's just not the way things happen often.
00:49:27 There's a whole section of the world of people you might want to influence who no matter how no amount of evidence will
00:49:36 graphs or data will ever convince those to how they can ensure it is beliefs
00:49:40 and kind of go with that somehow so simply buying more experiments by writing more papers by showing more graphs will
00:49:45 not do it. How else are going to influence them.
00:49:47 And this is where I think for us this idea of kind of experiential events often working with chefs or
00:49:54 or bringing people into environments where we can change lives and changes it and demonstrate them.
00:50:00 That's much more powerful to many people and that does lead people to go away
00:50:03 and say OK I'm going to do things differently where I am going to show the graph.
00:50:06 I just know what I felt
00:50:08 and we've had people coming out to do the three thousand person wine tasting where we change the lighting change the
00:50:13 music use has one glass of wine in your hand a score card and see how fruity how much you like the wine
00:50:19 and then you do what is called Card still got your glass of wine and I change the lighting.
00:50:23 I change music and I ask you to taste the wine again and suddenly taste different and then change the lighting again.
00:50:30 And you won't taste.
00:50:32 I'm not doing was to one changing I'm making it more fruity fresh more like the less like some recreating the problems
00:50:37 all rose a moment. In one environment ten minutes.
00:50:40 And not everyone gets it but those who do said you know it's unbelievable.
00:50:44 I think it's going to work and then as soon as you change the lighting change the taste. You know.
00:50:48 And with that the power of your own experience. That's what will drive people to go out and say OK I'm going to do it.
00:50:54 I took a long time to realize that that's made it a better way of maybe the only way bit of influencing people about
00:51:01 things that that aren't necessarily into it is to them
00:51:04 or go against the kind of the visual dominance that that is the bedrock
00:51:08 and it is built into our brains so that this sounds like fun.
00:51:13 Go on and make this period which changes even if you say why there isn't the why do you use during the. Yes.
00:51:29 And I sort of fell instantaneously for some people but it's also fun. But now that's nowhere really makes a difference.
00:51:40 Where. How. You know where they're understand what really in a way that. Now you know this is leaving.
00:52:03 The European Union that will change the way it was raised a lot of things in Europe.
00:52:10 People get scary you know what will happen next. Cortlandt. People don't know. So there is a difference.
00:52:24 And I can imagine I would transform my eyesight.
00:52:30 If that changes that the world around us will will change because we got our sensors our reprogrammed
00:52:39 or get reprogrammed without us knowing both get reprogrammed how what will that do to the world if we have our sensors
00:52:49 get bigger say in reality. So one might say of the maybe I could.
00:53:00 I'll rephrase the question I get one who will tell you. Mario to. If we use our senses.
00:53:08 So I won't change my thinking maybe you might say they bricks it voters they were describing on the television last
00:53:20 night was a once in a lifetime of political commentators in the seventy's I've never seen anything like this
00:53:25 and never will again no Will our children. So I think the events of the now that magnitude.
00:53:33 And also the work that we do is more of nudging small little mind small change here a small change there are there are
00:53:42 rarely full of your sick moments of wow.
00:53:45 So it's more and a creation of lots of little small nudges benefits improvements
00:53:51 and Huntsman's that over time say OK we really got somewhere now but at any one moment there's not suddenly.
00:53:57 And a ha moment or a shock. And I want them to write what will change when you compare. Year two thousand the year two.
00:54:10 So I write a lot about the foolishness of predicting what's going to happen a few years hence.
00:54:19 Because someone has ever done. It's always got it wrong. So.
00:54:24 That in one thousand nine hundred five eighty ninety four we had people I met scientists writing that a century.
00:54:31 Hence So I mean one thousand nine hundred ninety four people beating pills they were eat meals that's ridiculous.
00:54:37 Inefficient use of a pill that will come out of a slot in the wall that can only work.
00:54:43 How much more productive would we be that's never happened. It's never going to happen.
00:54:47 Going to be eating algal cuisine. Soylent Green that's not happening.
00:54:53 And it goes on all the predictions about what the future will be like tonight not to be like that. So I have to say up.
00:55:02 I no idea where it's going but if there is one person who could give me any open door to the future.
00:55:09 You can open any door to the future. About this field.
00:55:14 If you course because you know you will know more about those answers and I do
00:55:19 and you will be yes I know it's a surprise for us all. That you know that's the whole idea of how you think that.
00:55:34 You know really. The world will go the way it goes.
00:55:38 And you know how you can exert some influence over trends and fashions. You can drive them or predict them I think not.
00:55:48 So it was I got a very faint influence on. On forces that are much greater than yourself.
00:56:00 In society at large and technology and the extent that it's foolish to.
00:56:07 Even trying to predict will have this kind of overconfidence bias and gives us all a sense of certainty.
00:56:13 There really isn't there have to think of this referendum for leaving you or you that our senses were dominant.
00:56:29 That's the extent that we are primarily audiovisual creatures.
00:56:32 The senses are the more rational ones that any rebalancing of our senses and ramping up of smell of taste of touch.
00:56:43 These are the more emotional senses. They might imagine that would lead to more emotional decision making.
00:56:49 You take from that what you will. Whether that would have meant would have left. Or later.
00:56:54 Who knows one of the other Sure. So. What is your reaction for us. Regarding your research on census which is.
00:57:14 I don't want to miss anything. What is for you the most important thing regarding.
00:57:26 The Census what is what is your your main quest or your main goal.
00:57:32 In studying them is that the main goal for myself and for the lab I run here at Oxford is to try and understand
00:57:41 and take the understanding of how the senses interact. The sometimes unpredictable ways.
00:57:48 Our senses combine information and use those rules in the design of a different and hopefully better world
00:57:55 and that those kind of insights about the science of the senses about. The sensory perception.
00:58:01 I think spanned everywhere from the design of warning signals to car drivers through the design of food
00:58:08 and beverage experiences that are more stimulating or healthier omo memorable people have different of goals
00:58:13 or objectives through to the environments in which we live and work.
00:58:18 With a lot to work on kind of the ambient fragrance and paint colors and lighting and nature
00:58:23 and how those things might make us healthier happier more productive.
00:58:29 Through all sorts of ways of health care is an area that hasn't as yet received as much research around sensory design
00:58:39 multisensory design and you throw a few things which we better.
00:58:44 Generally for people in your safety and you know that it uses a lot of you.
00:58:58 So something like bringing hospitality back to hospitals that would be one thing that lead to a better world.
00:59:07 And that all will get there through engaging the senses in a more intelligent design.
00:59:12 Hospital health care type situations.
00:59:17 I think in the delivery of sort of healthier foods that taste the same as they always did to us.
00:59:25 That's important to many people
00:59:26 and yet have less of than healthy ingredients through through through intelligent design of the multi sensory
00:59:32 experience through everything we know about how the mind processes flavor that's going to be HUGE through sort of
00:59:40 because of transport technology. A lot of benefits for driver safety for air traffic control.
00:59:50 Fall in financial trading situations where every kind of milliseconds counts in terms of a lot of sex in a car has a.
01:00:00 So it's actually now. So the present time drivers are being confronted with more and more information.
01:00:10 Mobile phone and internet in their cars head up displays that are telling you about every single hotel
01:00:15 and bar restaurant. Competing with what's going to be going on outside the window screen.
01:00:20 There's a lot more distractions in cars and ever before.
01:00:23 Unable to technology all of those distractions are now being delivered by the content providers not the car companies.
01:00:31 So can we have a technology for years but the car companies were never really set for fear of accident.
01:00:36 But now it's the mobile providers for the first time can actually provide content drivers
01:00:41 and they don't care about safety not in the same way as the car companies do.
01:00:45 Well that means that if suddenly we have a generation of drivers who are more distracted or more texting.
01:00:50 Or the most dangerous thing you could possibly do.
01:00:53 And I tell my undergraduates you know for the females in the audience the most likely way they're going to die is at
01:00:59 the Huns of the wheel
01:01:01 when their boyfriends driving by far the biggest cause of death is through this texting distraction of the wheel
01:01:09 and so anything we can do that have a profound influence
01:01:11 and I see from our research that we can deliver we can get drivers to turn their heads back to the road if they're
01:01:17 distracted. To brake more rapidly.
01:01:20 If potential collision the event is occurring through not driving a red throbbing like that.
01:01:25 The engineer designs
01:01:26 but by putting science behind your head so it turns out that your brain has special dedicated circuits just this space
01:01:32 behind your head. The engineer never thought of putting a warning signal there.
01:01:35 But if I know from I'm saying how the brain works over the brain works that the special bit of the brain only has about
01:01:41 this for the space that isn't used while driving. If I put something in your head rest.
01:01:45 You can make you turn your head that much faster than anything else.
01:01:48 We go there for sound comes from a sound come from just behind your head your brain treats it differently processes it
01:01:56 differently and takes up to the same sound comes from in front.
01:02:00 From the dashboard
01:02:01 or from the door panel same sound same loud speaker that just behind your idea is processed differently now.
01:02:07 And for that.
01:02:08 No engineer in the in the car can restore that little voice out of the brain does our present understanding that the
01:02:13 senses and how they process information is one of the unexpected things that comes out
01:02:17 and you know we've demonstrated in the lab
01:02:19 but also the driving simulator that you can reduce reaction times amongst drivers to extent that should lead to
01:02:28 significant reductions in. And accidents on the roads.
01:02:32 For example where people drove to get a car which you're going to prevent a thing before you bus that's your action
01:02:47 kind of if you don't do that car. I wouldn't really say yeah but I believe so. Breath.
01:02:59 There is I mean you can detect if people are sleepy so probably that exact figures
01:03:05 but it might turn out that sleepy dot drivers are more dangerous as a group than drunk drivers
01:03:10 and maybe a third of all accidents are and some are related to sleepiness for example we'll tartness.
01:03:16 And say that is in fact a big cause of death on our roads.
01:03:21 I now radio the car companies can detect signs of falling asleep.
01:03:26 You're calm ask your question and then depending on how you are response you can tell from the gaps.
01:03:31 You can measure your blinking. You can measure how tightly your You're squeezing the steering wheel.
01:03:36 You can measure how aggressively you're braking and trim
01:03:40 or those cues can get a pretty good an estimate of your sleepiness. So I imagine the same is true for.
01:03:48 Four four I'll call low. There with. The sleepiness one definitely.
01:04:03 So the I know that the car companies have been working on the technologies to predict the sleepiness of drivers.
01:04:12 And then take countermeasures which probably if your car switches itself off you think you're tired now is going to buy
01:04:21 that car. But if it be automatically lowers the windows or releases an alerting scent.
01:04:29 That's not quite such an aggressive move.
01:04:31 Ideally should stop but maybe that's kind of into media companies are thinking in that space
01:04:36 and have the technology to work. In terms of the drinking while driving. I haven't heard actually anything.
01:04:42 In that space and your example of an angel were going to say well maybe they work.
01:04:49 That's a strange jump from from from car drivers to financial markets
01:04:53 but it was in a way they're the same in that this research on the design of warning signals.
01:04:59 Is an area where every millisecond every thousandth of a second matters. There are many other situations in life.
01:05:05 I mean I say I can save you one hundred a second.
01:05:08 So what who cares what I do to life driving and financial markets
01:05:13 or two of the few areas where such tiny improvements influence can lead to huge financial consequences be it in health
01:05:23 care provision for death at the wheel or gears and profits made in turbulent financial markets like for the last day
01:05:31 or two.
01:05:32 So they need something like the figures from Information Week one of the magazines for every millisecond advantage.
01:05:41 A typical sized trading house gets in the spin which information comes in that's one hundred million dollars a year to
01:05:52 that company. So you're already see that the. Lot of these companies will put their offices as close to.
01:06:00 Well the cables come out from under the North Atlantic to get that little millisecond advantage as compared to the
01:06:05 competitors who are in the city. So they're physically doing things to maximize speed up.
01:06:11 But they've never as far as I can tell ever thought about the design of that interface screens the alerts that they get.
01:06:18 So you know it has just happened.
01:06:20 You need some sort of special sound that maybe that would give you a few milliseconds advantage.
01:06:25 And if you if you're an economist then you can you say well. To the global economy.
01:06:30 What would the benefit of one millisecond faster braking be in terms of accidents
01:06:36 and more the latter you can say to the financial markets what would the benefit of one millisecond be to a lot of money
01:06:41 made by companies that they can actually equate say maybe they're worth as much or maybe the financial markets.
01:06:47 That's a bigger.
01:06:49 Potential market for milliseconds mattering and I mean because financial
01:06:54 and result there's a lot of my work is is taking domains that are very different the so you can apply the insights here
01:07:01 and there's thirty years of research on warning signals for car drivers and as far as I can tell there's nothing.
01:07:07 On trading one traders. Nothing. That's always the so much knowledge here and does it's the same thing.
01:07:16 But we have different different plans and that's a lot of our research is just taking insights from one area
01:07:22 and saying hey can we apply them over there who are tied to a particular industry or product or category.
01:07:28 And in fact there's lots of knowledge that just is sort of siloed. And what about. When.
01:07:38 You say well if you are able to read people by using your sense. So there is no suppose about it as a fact you can.
01:07:53 Help reduce modulator pain through the senses. And there are a number of ways. Doing it has been proven to effectively.
01:08:08 What you're what your partner.
01:08:11 So we've done a very small part of the research looking at how we can take insights about how the sensor interaction
01:08:18 from one domain to another. So for example from every move learned about sensory dominance in food.
01:08:24 How can we apply that to our sensory dollars
01:08:26 and pain relief from pleasure pain such as twenty of the same continuum maybe what we've been doing is for example.
01:08:37 We know that you perceive things more intensely if you concentrate on them. And if you're distracted.
01:08:42 You don't notice them as much. So a lot of pain relief strategies say for bandage changes very painful procedure.
01:08:51 What can you do to distract people take their attention away somewhere else it will hurt less.
01:08:57 So it doesn't work on attentional manipulation.
01:09:01 So maybe if you watch a very engaging video visual distraction painters less that's a factor.
01:09:10 That's going to incorporate it in some areas
01:09:12 but we've also been looking at his patients here in Oxford working with an Australian colleague we're looking at a
01:09:19 special group of chronic Regional Pain Syndrome say R.P.S. Patients and these are rare.
01:09:25 Fortunately very severe cases of birth people who've been on the motorbike or thrown off in a car accident.
01:09:34 Broke something seems to recovered. And then six months later.
01:09:38 Suddenly they get it's excruciating pain that will not go away that medication has no impact on the surgery seems to
01:09:46 have no impact on where you're left with a lifelong chronic pain and all them.
01:09:51 So we've been doing work with these patients who are very hard to work with if they're in such pain they don't are
01:09:56 taking part in when your experiment is the last thing.
01:10:00 I think they want to do
01:10:02 but those who've been able to work with you know show that if I can make your hand look smaller I can use visual
01:10:07 dominance. So we have Asians looking at that.
01:10:11 That affected limb through a pair of binoculars or been turned backwards so they look smaller
01:10:17 and if you look at your limit look smaller to you. Really. And it also reduces swelling.
01:10:25 So this psychological trip of just using visual dollars of the eyes has by the psychological impact on reduced pain
01:10:31 but also a physiological impact on reduced swelling in the limb. How long this lasts.
01:10:39 I can't say I demonstrated we do it in an hour for twenty or fifty or one hundred of these patients.
01:10:44 If you catch your limb and it was very small for a week a month a year. Who knows how long the effects will last.
01:10:50 Will they wear off. It's possible we don't know.
01:10:52 But it's going to very difficult very long term at least in the short term we can deliver pain relief through these
01:10:58 sort of tricks of the mind so lower my colleagues who are thinking about. Fragrance I know that for babies.
01:11:05 When they have some ask what's called a heel preposterous procedure very painful.
01:11:10 What the nurses do they give the baby a sugar cube.
01:11:15 So sweet taste reduces and they get across Mobile In fact my colleagues in Australia.
01:11:21 Have been working in adults to see whether a sweet smell can do the same thing.
01:11:25 So if I ask you is strawberries caramel has been allowed a sweet.
01:11:29 You say Yes I smell sweet because literally smells weeks once a taste and smell the smell
01:11:35 and yet you can smell sweet and if you diffuse that aroma while people are in pain they will rate the pain lower
01:11:44 and they'll be able to resist for longer
01:11:46 and they get using the senses using sight in one case using smell in another and I'm equally convinced in.
01:11:54 The effect of sound. You know you go to the dentist.
01:12:01 I'm sure if I could take that sound out to be a wholly different experience.
01:12:03 I could quieten it if I could play the sound of chipping birds something else. It just would last.
01:12:10 So all the senses play a role. So what are the things. Around you. That must be solvable or. You may get. Your ears.
01:12:32 Which you saw here
01:12:36 and you know these all you maybe something so it's up to sort of there are there are lots of questions that someone
01:12:51 like myself can answer as a lot of unsolvable things that I'm not the right kind of specialist for.
01:12:58 Those fortune I think we have insights that could be useful then almost any situation of daily life is the potential
01:13:07 benefits of better sensory design
01:13:09 and that is you know from hospitals to health care to offices to the home to the workplace to the airplane.
01:13:16 To the car to transport wherever you look I think engaging the senses all of the senses better would lead to more
01:13:23 immersive more engaging healthier more enjoyable more memorable experiences. So which the ones we haven't got yet.
01:13:27 They tend to be the ones where it's going to be hard to do hard to get to.
01:13:32 Our hard to convince those in authority that this is something they might think about.
01:13:39 So all of those hospitals is one that I think so.
01:13:45 Huge potential market loss and insights that we take from designing supermarkets
01:13:51 and stalls to be better a lot of the insights and you can apply to the health care situation. We haven't got there yet.
01:13:57 Because all of our grant applications been turned down.
01:14:00 Finally we've got a Spanish hospital just outside Barcelona that treat a private hospital that treats children with
01:14:08 cancer and they were very open minded approach to engaging with a sense and I did some brilliant things
01:14:14 and we have start working with them since this year together with the colony center to design sensory design not
01:14:20 sensory design of health care for some very sick children.
01:14:23 There are also things I think we can apply there some are thinking in five
01:14:26 or ten years that will come to be much more relevant.
01:14:30 Airplanes is another one of the mentioned some of the sound bite this music that will have the taste of the food
01:14:37 but I think there's a lot more that can be done there.
01:14:39 It's just hard to get access to do the experiments on the airplanes. But I see some of the some of the big line.
01:14:48 You know they want to innovate to differentiate themselves at least at the top end in the first and business class
01:14:53 and yet you think I am the more celebrity chefs can they get them to realize that celebrities have doesn't make the
01:14:59 food taste better. That's not the way to go.
01:15:02 So you got you've got the intention but not the execution and I think engaging all the senses
01:15:07 and think about the whole experience of the problems all rosé And how do you put that into the airplane might offer
01:15:11 the potential to radically innovate in that space to. There's money there's interest but they are together.
01:15:20 And the trading floor. Is another one that's.
01:15:25 Has its own peculiar difficulties in that the financial traders are masters of the universe. They think their god.
01:15:35 And their every every hour of that time is worth.
01:15:38 How many million euros
01:15:39 or pounds whatever it is so I want to test them I want to take part in the experiment so I can demonstrate to them the
01:15:45 benefit of using this tool that. That important to give up their time to take part in research.
01:15:51 Does the other person reason is it is quite impossible to get to maybe know what.
01:15:55 There are ways around it but there are also some challenging mames.
01:16:00 Because of the use in control of them or because of the practical limitations. I hope you will get there somehow.
01:16:07 So the challenge really for us is to say how do we how do we influence though that those who are controlled to take
01:16:13 that step. So we know very well we don't.
01:16:39 So I guess there's a potential that if we don't use we don't use it you lose it is kind of the phrase that gets bandied
01:16:47 around a lot
01:16:49 and one might think of something like our pheromone all senses kind of into concepts of ik chemical communication that
01:16:55 we know dogs have another animals have but humans seem to more or less have lost sight we didn't need it.
01:17:02 And maybe that is our suggestion is that when we went from four legs
01:17:05 and our noses very close to the ground the smell was very important
01:17:08 and then we went up into two legs suddenly we're much further away from the smelly stuff.
01:17:14 And hence that's partly whence our sense of smell started its decline.
01:17:18 And that now if we compare ourselves to dogs and clearly dogs are much better able to navigate
01:17:23 and to tell apart things through smell. Whereas our sense of smell.
01:17:27 We can see in the evolutionary record that it was very important.
01:17:30 It's more of a genetic material it's given over to smell than to any other sense. And yet today.
01:17:35 Look at U R I N R R R R nasal operator says is sadly diminished. From what it once was in the past so losing it.
01:17:42 You could say you know there are problems. If you would like to read the extinction of the species isn't it.
01:17:50 Is it a problem that little furry rats somewhere
01:17:52 and I mean they're off to five hours of New Zealand just could extinguished.
01:17:55 They also be a problem there are cuts after. Much. If we lost our senses.
01:18:02 I mean there's a question you can ask people if I have had to take one of your senses away which one would you least
01:18:08 like to lose and never goes of course my my eyes.
01:18:15 But in fact if you look at suicides after the loss of a sense that people are far more likely to commit suicide after
01:18:22 the loss of smell than vision.
01:18:26 This is the one that gives you your emotional life your connection your enjoyment of food.
01:18:31 Linked to sort of attraction and so does that this is the one that actually leads to you should avoid a lot of.
01:18:38 That maybe those who are blind
01:18:39 and still have that still have the memories of images they can create for a number of years after.
01:18:45 Taste it turns out is probably the least important one.
01:18:47 You could get rid of that maybe you would not realize
01:18:50 and I have been a few scientists in history who lost their tongues to syphilis
01:18:57 and the French army were quite fond of chopping out.
01:19:00 Algerian tongues and Napoleonic wars or whatever it was and in both cases it seems. Nothing much changes.
01:19:09 So actually taste your time might be very important.
01:19:11 All I know is if I were in danger of losing them I guess it'll be a very slow decline. And I think really probably.
01:19:20 We still do use all of our senses some of the time.
01:19:24 So it's not that we never use smell like if you don't rank awful smelling fish you will use it then you will use it for
01:19:32 detecting fire.
01:19:33 So they all are still used and we're trying to just increase the amount of time that people are
01:19:39 and connect in touch with or thinking about all mindful of their other senses. But.
01:19:47 What I was really really depends which one we lose big with this role for emergency room. So we do. That.
01:20:00 We have lost it depends which scientist you listen to when you mostly lost it.
01:20:06 Then when I whether we have lost it really no I actually I look at dogs and say I can see that they get all horny when.
01:20:14 This sort of smell comes along but I don't feel like I'm missing anything by.
01:20:18 Now in that sense I guess people by the very fact that you say which sense would you least like to lose
01:20:25 and nobody really says smell implies that we don't evaluate as much as perhaps we should.
01:20:33 Loss of the sense of touch is pretty pretty debilitating.
01:20:38 So he's going to tell you which we should we don't know if you know this. Like it or.
01:20:49 Don't we need every parent not let me get on OK. There is. So. So you know maybe. What happens is.
01:21:06 Maybe we evolve with different individual senses telling us about different part of the world all of our stuff we need
01:21:15 to know about poisons and pleasures food. And mates.
01:21:19 And then our brain with all this information starts to combine the senses and we have multi sensory perception
01:21:25 and then that allows you to almost sort of predict or do things differently.
01:21:31 In a way so I guess we humans are quite rare in not only tasting food also smelling it as
01:21:40 when we swallow act it is pushed into the back of our nose.
01:21:43 So it seems like we have a pretty unique way of tasting food that involves a nose.
01:21:50 As well as a mouth and not many other species all of the species have that.
01:21:53 So it kind of adapted or learn new ways of doing things through combining sensors and.
01:22:00 What ways or using sense was developed for one thing for something else and that maybe now without.
01:22:07 If I look at the the animal kingdom that maybe makes selection is mostly about smell
01:22:12 and pheromones doesn't really matter. You know how shiny that.
01:22:16 And the talk or something else or hot it's all about smell. And humans it seems.
01:22:22 Otherwise it's a pre-primary about the visual. So maybe we change our dominance.
01:22:30 When I would visually driven creatures. Maybe men more and more than women who were doing things a different way.
01:22:37 Maybe we'll do something that maybe I'm not as able by visually inspecting a potential mate to figure out whether
01:22:46 they'll make a good sort of genetic match in terms of the immune response of the offspring smell would tell that much
01:22:52 more directly seven to smell. I still might become eight and reproduction will still take place.
01:22:57 That maybe there was some errors or problems that will will ensue you use your depth as a research.
01:23:09 Because words are visually dominant so love is so is the thing again of we.
01:23:12 We miss attributes or we will develop this bigger visual brain Talbot's to find fruit in the trees
01:23:20 and then once half of our brain is given over to vision. It's hard not to use it for the other things.
01:23:26 So if we go on dating. Yeah it's better to do that. So that's the thing that I think we better genes all your senses.
01:23:37 The more sense.
01:23:38 You have the more information you've got and essentially about sight different stuff
01:23:42 and yet we have been working with artists like Clara city who have been doing some playing in this space thinking about
01:23:50 the smell dating agency. So she and others are our famous for getting a hundred people to wear a T.
01:23:56 Shirt don't wash for a day or two and bring your teacher. And then that the speed data is just smile all the T.
01:24:04 Shirts from one to one hundred. It's all I'd like to take that one and that one and that one.
01:24:09 And then you get to meet the one and sometimes it's somebody about a sex that you're not a very small one
01:24:16 but it's actually a man or vice versa and a bit of a shock and other times and they smell great but they look awful.
01:24:22 So when you do I guess you'll end up reverting to your eyes
01:24:25 and yet I still wonder if you were given both not just the kind of the online visual profile
01:24:30 but also the smile with those two cues. Maybe come to a better choice. And it is going to get worse. What works.
01:24:43 Where you are you three will smell the most smell different your teachers will smell different
01:24:49 and they'll be more attractive to some people than others. So there is information there.
01:24:54 We don't all smell or same and somebody will have attraction to one does it work.
01:24:58 What would be a long term consequence if we had you know did the experiment one hundred people you can only pick your
01:25:03 mate from a picture
01:25:05 and another hundred you can only pick from Smell who would wish which group with the divorce rates be higher.
01:25:11 That's going to experiment that.
01:25:13 Probably will get their fix to do better and so you won't you know I'm not sure actually.
01:25:23 I definitely think that if you have the smell and the vision you do better than just a vision.
01:25:28 If you had one or the other cures that are these that have ethics you see
01:25:38 and then they would let me hear there is an artistic expression expects perience. Art Project you can do it.
01:25:45 But if your measurement scientists then go to the Ethics
01:25:47 and then people start wondering about the ethics of that sort of.
01:25:52 But it is interesting and it is sort of open it's more. To make you think differently and maybe there are some.
01:26:00 Differences between males and females so about. Feelings. Using your senses.
01:26:10 Is possible when you reprogram your senses or your senses a different way.
01:26:18 That you experience of feelings like love or heal or jealousy or anger.
01:26:32 I don't know where you want to put feelings and emotions that they're not exclusively tied to a particular sense.
01:26:39 So I think I could show you a range of faces
01:26:44 and you say that one looks happy that one looks sad that one looks guilty that
01:26:48 when I was depressed I could I could play you some of the sounds of people's voices you could do the same thing I could
01:26:53 even put your hand out.
01:26:56 And I can pretty tap and stroke and you were able to be able to decode the emotion through touch
01:27:02 and even through smell you can someday react and smell happy from fearful.
01:27:07 So the same things are so if the sense is it possible is it possible that you have an army.
01:27:16 You will find you have already let you use there but your smell. Anything else to build up a feeling of hate.
01:27:30 For example. Is a possible. Does it does it does it's no different here in Britain.
01:27:39 Don't want to be part of yeah but today better.
01:27:45 So it's certainly true that the ambience that can change our mood make it more relaxed more aggressive.
01:27:54 Make us more alert or more relaxed. They might say I want my fighting force to be. Sort of alerts not relaxed.
01:28:03 So maybe you're thinking a certain kind of. Citrus open it's really better than lavender or camel mile.
01:28:14 And beyond that. For example if a police. Just played. You go you. Know. Is it possible that you will go. Yes. Really.
01:28:40 So if possible so we say. Maybe so there are studies out there.
01:28:47 That you can change the scent in the slot machines and Last Vegas
01:28:53 and there are certain sense of make people spend more.
01:28:58 People's ears away tell you what the scent is exactly but they say it works a special sound.
01:29:02 If you believe that there are all sorts of act comes you could get their sense all
01:29:06 and increase the likelihood of a negotiation coming to a successful conclusion there a sense that could be worked on
01:29:12 the trainer trading floor to say. Even so frame it as is there a sense that will get people to spend more.
01:29:20 Is there a sense that will get people to be more aggressive Is there a site that will make people fight better or
01:29:24 or can fast sooner. You might get I think you could get any of those outcomes through scent.
01:29:30 They're really going the mechanism is well if you're more lax.
01:29:33 I can tell you all sorts of stuff where it's not time intensive I want
01:29:37 and the mechanism that smile makes you confess sooner is by making you react perhaps. There.
01:29:44 The reason why sent makes you spend more is not directed at you spend more.
01:29:47 Maybe more comfortable next time passed slower. But when you relax times passes more slowly.
01:29:52 And there's a sense of the sense that. For some stuff on to negotiations conflict. Solution.
01:30:00 What sort of space should they.
01:30:02 Yeah fighting parties be in there's a painkiller matter you asked as a lighting matter you asked of the chair you
01:30:07 sitting on that I guess are certain phrases that might work better than others but undoubtedly.
01:30:15 So what you're saying is that it will make you use them right. Yeah. Mostly from the U.S. Military.
01:30:39 Is very strange that you get an email from colonels
01:30:43 and so please send me some stuff can you give us quite conference to our.
01:30:48 You do that and then the next week say our first time something is on the paper
01:30:53 and send them a matter of control by which time the e-mail accounts go black doesn't exist. Never existed.
01:30:58 Two or three times so they do get in touch if it's a real name or not and we pass on some information.
01:31:06 I think is useful. Little of interest in the maintenance of surveillance.
01:31:12 If I'm trying to detect a potential terrorist threat or aggressive incident when I've got my cameras.
01:31:18 We've got more C.C.T.V. Than anybody else but if i also the microphone and I could to sense.
01:31:24 With that could be more information and if so what. How would I combine.
01:31:29 The sound from the microphone with the scanning image. So there is interest there and try to sort of build.
01:31:36 What we've evolved naturally this multi-sensory perception and you build it in engineer it into robots
01:31:42 and surveillance systems and other types of equipment
01:31:47 and stuff through to work on alerting people if you know if I can make a car driver hit the brakes half a second faster
01:31:56 and you make a soldier shoot somebody.
01:32:00 Almost as much better as well through a long term kind of a pop up for long term performance. In the field of.
01:32:10 I want to tell my operative what to do but if I say Oh. Hank. Should be left then the oppositional here.
01:32:17 So maybe if I have a vibrating suit I can. I can communicate without sound without vision.
01:32:22 So the other senses are left open.
01:32:23 That's of interest
01:32:24 and we've been working on vibrating body devices through for those who don't like very long term missions say if you're
01:32:33 on a or those intercontinental refueling or long distance bombing routes.
01:32:40 How do you keep your pilot awake for long enough.
01:32:43 Nice to talk pills and stuff but now there's work
01:32:45 and if I if I capture the blue light of dawn that can trick brain into things dual time to wake up
01:32:53 and Swedish truck drivers through military pilots can be kept more alert for longer thought of playing with the sensors
01:33:00 in that way. So a lot of potential.
01:33:03 And I guess we've done bits
01:33:05 and pieces with the Dutch kind of military research partly military research that you don't see as examples where for
01:33:20 simulations.
01:33:21 It is important whether it was the soldiers simulating what's going to light when they're fighting somewhere new.
01:33:26 Or if it's for the doctors simulating what can be like operating in a military hospital in a war zone.
01:33:32 It's forty degrees in a tent with dust in your eye then just showing people a virtual reality doesn't do it where it is.
01:33:39 Really I guess you call it. Maybe it's all meant to reality. So it's something that's a blend of both.
01:34:04 Distinguish like the difference between zero and one so might be say
01:34:11 when it's all sort of virtual It's all constructed without any technologies what can the information is coming from
01:34:16 your eyes and your ears and your nose. There's no direct readout of what's out there in the world.
01:34:21 It's always going to hypothesis generation your brain predicting imagining.
01:34:25 What the world is like and then occasionally testing reality against your model.
01:34:30 So the way we're always living in a virtual world doesn't feel like that.
01:34:33 Wait that's kind of how the brain said look if everybody. There is actually to some degree grounded in.
01:34:40 Physical stuff but all related to physical memory.
01:34:47 I'm in part of that will to learn how the world is through prior exposure and and pick up
01:34:53 and regularity of the world
01:34:55 and then use those to predict how the other one is going to be like in a few moments time we check.
01:35:02 And that descriptive.
01:35:04 Says a word on one of the question What Well is it isn't all up section kind of virtual or is it all an illusion.
01:35:10 Through to how Will technology is virtual reality oriented reality become the new norm
01:35:18 and replace Who needs real nature when I can stick you in now with a headset
01:35:22 and play the sounds of nature in the smells of nature is as good as the real thing.