As Light as Your Footsteps: A shoe-based wearable device for real-time modification of footstep sounds for illusory changes in body weight

People’s body perceptions are highly malleable, as demonstrated by neuroscientific studies on sensory-driven illusions. At the intersection between psychoacoustics, cognitive neuroscience, and technology our work has shown that sounds, in combination with tactile and/or proprioceptive cues, can change people’s body perceptions. Join us for a live demo of our shoe-based system, that allows for real-time modification of footstep sounds, and experience the effects on your own perceptions, movements and emotions. Through this system we have demonstrated that dynamic modification of footstep sounds can lead people to perceive their body as lighter, walk more dynamically and feel happier, potentially supporting health.

At the heart of our system is a pair of binaural microphones that capture the particular features of footstep sounds. These sounds are then processed to accomplish an accurate real-time modification of footstep sounds. Importantly, the core of our device is open source.

Our system also integrates a range of biosensors and a MoCap suit for capturing movement and posture data. By combining these data sources, as part of our ERC-funded project BODYinTRANSIT, we created a benchmark database, encompassing various combinations of participants: physically active and inactive, with and without body concerns as well as with and without symptomatology of eating disorders. Our goal is to establish an extensive dataset so as to enhance our understanding of the tangled relationship between sound, body perception, behavior, and emotion, as well as to inform the personalization of future body transformation technologies.  This integrated approach holds great promise in understanding which input signals, such as motion sensors and biosensors, contribute the most to achieving the desired objective of real-time measuring of perceived changes in body weight and shape.

In this interactive demonstration, visitors will have the exclusive opportunity to wear the sound device and experience firsthand the transformative impact of sound on their body perception. Participants will be able to test three different sound processing modes and experience how each mode affects their feelings. This interactive demonstration aims to foster a tangible and immersive understanding of how sound processing significantly influences body perception, potentially yielding benefits for health and well-being.