Researchers at the University of Warwick are using a prototype headset to investigate the use of olfactory stimuli in a virtual racing game, allowing players to smell the burning rubber of car tires. The headset's makers say its applications reach beyond the virtual world, and could potentially be an early screener for Alzheimer's. - REUTERS
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00:00It smells like, like a car crash, like burning tires.
00:05PhD student Danelle Jojanova isn't in a vehicle.
00:10She's playing a video game.
00:11The smell she's describing is coming from a scent tube
00:15on the gaming headset she's wearing.
00:17It's a prototype for a novel experiment
00:19at the intersection of gaming and sensory science,
00:23looking at the use of olfactory stimuli
00:25in a virtual racing scenario
00:27and whether it could give users a boost.
00:30Professor Alan Chalmers at the University of Warwick,
00:33which is celebrating its 60th anniversary,
00:36is leading the research.
00:37Gaming, of course,
00:38people want a more immersive gaming experience.
00:41And of course, smell is a very important part
00:42of the real world.
00:43So in the driving simulation that we're doing here,
00:46if you have the smell of the burning brakes,
00:47of course, it's going to indicate there's a problem
00:49and you should maybe take your foot off the brake.
00:50So if you didn't have that smell of burning in the game,
00:53you wouldn't respond correctly.
00:54The headset was designed to release specific odors,
00:57such as machine oil and burning rubber
01:00at critical moments in the game.
01:02But Chalmers acknowledges
01:03those aren't exactly winning smells inside your home.
01:07Smell-o-vision and scratches
01:09have been around for a long time.
01:10But the big problem with any smell
01:11is if you puff smell into an environment,
01:12how do you get rid of it?
01:13So really, the research element
01:14is trying to deliver just the right amount of smell
01:16that you have the immersive experience
01:18without completely smothering the whole environment in it.
01:20The project is a collaboration
01:22with video game developers, Hollywood Gaming.
01:24They're aiming to create the next big thing in gaming,
01:27though the research has applications beyond the game console.
01:33Chalmers and his team have also developed
01:36a prototype device that tests people's sense of taste.
01:39He says it could be used as an early screening tool
01:41for Alzheimer's disease
01:43by measuring how someone's sense of smell and taste
01:47changes over time in, say, a cooking game.
01:50We can check how good you are
01:51compared to your age or sexual ethnicity
01:53or compared to yourself six months ago.
01:55If you're not where you should be,
01:56then you could have a problem
01:57and you should be looked at further.