Synesthesia in a complex condition affecting between 1/100,000 people and 1/5,000 people [1]. It is hard to be accurate as many are unaware they have the condition. It is loosely defined as the “coming together” of two separate senses. A Synesthete could hear a piece of sad music, and also perceive that it was blue. A Synesthete could experience not only the flavour of a piece of food, but also its “shape”. Synesthesia is a difficult concept for many to grasp, and its root causes are still unconfirmed.
Virtual Reality is an area of computing technology that has increased rapidly in popularity in the last few years. Due to heavy interest from gamers and developers many new simulation technologies are available. These technologies will allow us to simulate Synesthesia, and understand the condition better.
This project is an attempt at simulating and replicating the neorological sensory condition Synaesthesia using Unity 5 and an Oculus Rift. It was completed as part of a Dissertation in Computer Science at the University of Reading, in 2016. This proof of concept is designed to be open-source and modular, with future expandability being a key feature.
Focusing on visual technology leads us to the newest devices in virtual reality, Head Mounted Devices (HMD). More commonly known as ‘VR Goggles’, a small selection of these should be commercially available this year, including the HTC Vive and Microsoft HoloLens. The Oculus Rift was chosen for this project because of its high-fidelity screens, comfortable design, and wide capabilities. Developers have been using the Oculus development kits for testing for the past year, and therefore a variety of development resources are now available. The Development Kit 2 (DK2) is the specific model used in this project.
The repository contains all the necessary file to run the simulation.
[1] V. Gross, ‘The Synesthesia Project’, Boston University.