Present day computer technology, including PDA’s and cellphones, utilize only a fraction of our sensory and cognitive capabilities.
Ambient devices elegantly embed digital information into the objects and environments that surround us. These displays are in the form of sound, air pressure, motion, light, smell, and other media that complement the full range of our human sensory modalities. They exist in the periphery of our senses, where they provide continuous information without being distracting.
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Ambient
displays take advantage of a cognitive psychology phenomenon
called pre-attentive processing.
How often have you been in an airport or crowded party
and heard your name called out of the acoustic clutter?
Clearly we are able to acquire and process spoken language
without any foreground consciousness. Somewhere in our
brain, sound is being converted into language and monitored
for relevant information content. We are not paying attention
to the myriad of conversations in the crowd, yet when
information pertains to us, we immediately become alert.
Our brains have evolved to monitor several streams of
background information without any foreground cognitive
loading. Furthermore, our brains bring this information
to our foreground consciousness when we descern it to
be relevant within a given context.
How Ambient technology works
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