See Personal Touch: Hearing a Heartbeat Has the Same Effect as Looking Each Other in the Eye at ScienceDaily for a description of the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), Stanford University and Philips Research findings.
It makes perfect sense, that article title above. My husband is my only close historical boyfriend. When we dated, it was an incredible experience to lay my head on his chest for the first time and to listen to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat.
I am on the lookout for ways that gaming technology will enter our personal lives. Here is a way for personal life to enter gaming technology. Imagine playing a game and your avatar is not only loosing life, but you also have a physical sensation of lighter blood pressure heart beats and perhaps erratic heart beats. Or when your avatar faces danger, the frequency and blood “pressure” increases on your sensor patch. If you play in a Second Life type of world, would your avatar experience anxiety attacks, or worse, a heart attack.
Playing around with this technology could be tricky. If heartbeats do indeed form a connection, will online advertisers try to trick our body intelligence into bonding with their products? Would unstable gamers resort to suicide after losing the life of a beloved or hard-won character? Would you find it easier to have a traveling job and still be close to your infant at home? Or will our bodies intuitively know that the heartbeat is a fake and lead us down the road to an even less connected society?
