[SFDXA] How to Learn Morse Code—Semiconsciously - Scientific American

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  How to Learn Morse Code—Semiconsciously

Wearable computers delivering tactile cues may offer a way to learn 
manual skills without paying much attention

  * By Ingfei Chen
    <https://www.scientificamerican.com/author/ingfei-chen/> |
    Scientific American February 2017 Issue
    <https://www.scientificamerican.com/magazine/sa/2017/02-01/?WT.ac=SA_SA_CurrentIssue>


Learning Morse code, with its tappity-tap rhythms of dots and dashes, 
could take far less effort—and attention—than one might think. The trick 
is a wearable computer that engages the sensory powers of touch, 
according to a recent pilot study. The results suggest that mobile 
devices may be able to teach us manual skills, almost subconsciously, as 
we go about our everyday routines.

Ph.D. student Caitlyn Seim and computer science professor Thad Starner 
of the Georgia Institute of Technology tinker with haptics, the 
integration of vibrations or other tactile cues with computing gadgets. 
Last September at the 20th International Symposium on Wearable Computers 
in Heidelberg, Germany, they announced that they had programmed Google 
Glass to passively teach its wearers Morse code—with preliminary signs 
of success.

For the study, 12 participants wore the smart glasses while engrossed in 
an online game on a PC. During multiple hour-long sessions, half the 
players heard Google Glass's built-in speaker repeatedly spelling out 
words and felt taps behind the right ear (from a bone-conduction 
transducer built into the frames) for the dots and dashes corresponding 
to each letter. The other six participants heard only the audio, without 
the corresponding vibrations.

After each run of game playing, all the players were asked to tap out 
letters in Morse code using a finger on the touch pad of the smart 
glasses; for example, if they tapped “dot-dot,” an “i” would pop up on 
the visual display. The brief testing essentially prompted them to try 
to learn the code. After four one-hour sessions, the group that had 
received tactile cues could tap a pangram (a sentence using the entire 
alphabet) with 94 percent accuracy. The audio-only group eventually 
achieved 47 percent accuracy, learning solely from their trial-and-error 
inputs.

The work shows that “it is possible to teach a system of typing without 
the user paying much attention to it,” Starner says. Passive haptic 
learning could help users quickly master new text-entry methods for 
accessory keyboards or an eyes-free, Morse code–like system of taps on a 
smart watch, he adds, noting: “That might really change how people use 
mobile and wearable devices.”

The results are also “exactly congruent” with other effects of passive 
haptic learning that the researchers have found in past studies, Seim 
says. For example, the group has developed computing gloves that deliver 
vibrations to the fingers to teach the “muscle memories” for playing a 
piano song or typing Braille.

Although it was small scale, the experiment demonstrates how wearable 
computers could permit users to “go about your daily business—and while 
you do that, you can get information to actually learn things,” says 
Paul Lukowicz of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence, 
who was not involved in the study. Now if only listening to Mandarin in 
your sleep could impart fluency.

Full Article:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-learn-morse-code-mdash-semiconsciously/