"Sensory Fiction": A Kind of Virtual Reality E-Book Reading Experience

On January 29, 2014 Theguardian.com reported that scientists Felix Heibeck, Alexis Hope and Julie Legault at MIT's Media Lab created a "wearable book" that used temperature and lighting to mimic the experiences of the book's protagonist in a kind of augmented reading, virtual or partial virtual, reality. The e-book senses the page the reader is on, and changes ambient lighting and vibrations to "match the mood." A series of straps form a vest which contains a "heartbeat and shiver simulator," a body compression system, temperature controls and sound. 

The researchers used as prototype James Tiptree Jr's Hugo award-winning novella The Girl Who Was Plugged In, in which the protagonist P Burke – who is deformed by pituitary dystrophy and herself experiences life through an avatar – feels "both deep love and ultimate despair, the freedom of Barcelona sunshine and the captivity of a dark damp cellar."

" 'Changes in the protagonist's emotional or physical state trigger discrete feedback in the wearable [vest], whether by changing the heartbeat rate, creating constriction through air pressure bags, or causing localised temperature fluctuations,' say the academics.

 " 'Sensory fiction is about new ways of experiencing and creating stories,' they write. 'Traditionally, fiction creates and induces emotions and empathy through words and images. By using a combination of networked sensors and actuators, the sensory fiction author is provided with new means of conveying plot, mood, and emotion while still allowing space for the reader's imagination. These tools can be wielded to create an immersive storytelling experience tailored to the reader.

" 'To explore this idea, we created a connected book and wearable [vest]. The 'augmented' book portrays the scenery and sets the mood, and the wearable allows the reader to experience the protagonist's physiological emotions' " (http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/28/sensory-fiction-mit-technology-wearable-fiction-books?commentpage=1, accessed 01-29-2014).