Can The Senses Problem Be Solved In The Metaverse?

Published in

Coinmonks

6 min readMar 1, 2022

Prior to Facebook changing it’s name to Meta, the happenings in the virtual reality and Blockchain world had been on a hush for a number of reasons. One of such reasons lies in people not believing in the practicality of the virtual space, and many other questions have spurred from this notion. The un-sustained interest in virtual world and block-chain has caused for most not to hang around for answers.

However, since Meta's name change and organizational shift, the world has taken cognizance of the virtual world, and the role of block-chain in it through NFTs. Some of these questions are now surfacing again, this write up hopes to answer one of such questions. The question in mind is about how the Metaverse hopes to tackle the 5 senses problems in the virtual space.

Humans have more than five senses, the five basic ones are;

· Sight

· Sound

· Smell

· Taste, and

· Touch

Most of these senses have been translated to the virtual space, while the rest are experiencing ongoing innovations with excellent results in tests. So here is a rundown of the work being done on these senses.

Sight

Sight is the sense of seeing. So what does this need to function in VR/Metaverse? All it needs is a retina-level display. If that’s in place, then participants can develop a visible scenery right in front of their eyes, and it would seem like the real world. VR headsets have installed in them two LCD monitors, which are projected at each eye, the stereoscopic effect gotten gives viewers the feeling of depth. This problem has already been tackled. Sight is ticked off the list, four more senses to go.

Sound

As the Metaverse evolves and develops, it will challenge audio production in new ways, spurring innovation. VR has already given new life to audio technologies such as Ambisonics and binaural recording, audio systems previously sidelined for lack of sufficient application. The way users experience sound in the Metaverse will be expanded and extended in surprising ways in the near future. We have had Dolby and Stereo sound for a long time, and more and more innovation are coming. So sound is ticked off the list, three more to go.

Touch

For the sense of touch, there are a lot of technologies that currently exist and many of them are still in development. Under Touch, the key word here is haptics. Michael Naiwak in a 2018 lecture at New York University defined “Haptics is broadly defined as recreating the sense of touch through forces, vibrations, and motions,” And this goes on to demonstrate the complexity of touch, regardless, there are notable works covering the sense of touch and feeling.

We have haptic suits, which simulate the sense of touch all over the body. There are seats and motion platforms, force feedback, gloves, non contact haptics, universal treadmills to help movement in all direction, etc. Honestly, there are a lot of innovations in this field and it’s only going to get better.

So Yes, the sense of touch is being handled, two more senses to go. The last two are trickier and harder to tackle.

Smell

Of all the senses, these last two have being the hardest to replicate in the Metaverse and virtual reality spaces.

For smell, different innovations have sprung up, only for another to take their place. In the 60s, different cinema companies tried to infuse their movie experience with smell using machines, and it worked except the aromas were not evacuated as fast as they were emitted. You can imagine yourself still perceiving the smell of breads and pastries, especially when you are past the bakery scene or in the middle of a gun fight. It’s funny but the idea didn’t survive the stand of time. Some popular aroma companies then were Smell-O-Vision and AromaRama.

A more recent innovation and solution to smell would be for participants to wear special release devices around their neck. RemniScent, a L.A based startup is already working on this. They are making small wireless modules which have been loaded with chemicals based scent filters. The electronic cigarette industry could also use electrical signals to add some stimulation to chemical substances, wherein they can have different sense of smell.

The sense of taste and smell go hand in hand as they both involve the stimulation of chemicals.

Taste

The world used to believe humans had four receptors, until Umami, the taste of savory and meat was added. Now we have five taste sensations. Although not a recent addition to the taste field, research and work in the field is very little. Some of such institutes pushing the frontiers are Mixed Reality Lab in Singapore, and Imagineering Institute in Malaysia. The director, Dr. Adrian Cheok, had these to say in an interview with Asian Scientists, “It’s still very much in the early stages of research but we have successfully been able to produce virtual taste, using electrical signals only and without any chemicals”

The problem plaguing the translation of this sense into the Metaverse lies in the sparse research that are being poured into it. With Meta, Microsoft, and Apple throwing their hats into the Metaverse ring, it’s only a matter of time before funds are provided for research and headways made in tackling the sense of taste.

The human senses problem in the Metaverse problem will soon be solved with new entrants and investments to the Industry. However, one problem currently plagues all the technologies that have been/are being developer to tackle these problems. The problem of cost still disturbs most of these equipment as they are very expensive, so mainstream adoption will be problematic. The success and wide adoption of the internet can be attributed to the commercialization of computers and mobile phones. The internet went from being solely available in internet cafes to being in everyone’s hands. Meta verse companies need to tread the same path for the adoption of these technologies to be possible and easy on their target audience.

With the senses problem solved, the next is about how Emotions will be expressed in the Metaverse, the answer to this decides how humane this technology will be.