Perceive More By Seeing Less: Experience Diminished Reality

Hosted at the MIT Museum
Sept. 12th, 2024
Over 500 Attendees

"Perceive More by Seeing Less" started as a scientific experiment to improve vision for previously blind children. The system aims to restore visual spatial acuity by temporarily augmenting vision via live spatial frequency filters. This vision augmentation is made possible using mixed reality (MR/AR/VR/XR) technology: removing or enhancing different spatial frequencies in the user's visual field.

While developing this intervention, we made an interesting discovery while piloting it ourselves: removing information from someone's vision (seeing less) could actually allow one to notice and appreciate new information from the environment (perceiving more).

Now, it's your turn to experience diminished reality. It's your turn to notice something new when the distractions are taken away. Think about what reality you'd live in if your sensory experience had knobs and levers. Join us Sept. 12th to put on an XR headset running visual augmentation algorithms and dive into an entirely new world of sensory experience.

Prakash AR Scientific Experiment Overview

In India, Project Prakash works to restore sight to children born with treatable blindness. When these children finally see the world, their brains struggle with visual acuity – the ability to see fine details and sharp edges that most take for granted. Dr. Pawan Sinha asked a provocative question: could we teach their brains to see these intricate details by filtering away everything else, leaving only the fine patterns and sharp edges that their visual systems needed to learn?

This led to an experiment at MIT where researchers developed a mixed reality system that selectively filters what people see in real-time, like adjusting an equalizer for vision. During this ongoing study, the team discovered something unexpected: by strategically removing certain visual information, we might actually enhance our perception of what remains – showing that sometimes, seeing less helps us perceive more.

Project Team: Cayden Pierce, Daniel Pillis, Pawan Sinha, Jan Skerswetat, Seth Riskin, Ken Zolot