Equipment throttling the speaker

Two Japanese scientists have created a device capable of 'destroying' the excitement of those who say too much or too loudly.

Previous research has shown that people are almost unable to speak if the words we say echo our ears in less than a second.

Kazutaka Kurihara, a scientist at the Institute of Advanced Science and Technology of Japan, and Koji Tsukada of Ochanomizu University in Tokyo, came up with the idea of creating a device that blocks " The speaker is annoying to others, the Telegraph reported.

Speech jammer equipment

SpeechJammer , the name of the device, contains a microphone towards the speaker to record. Then it transmits the sound to a speaker to the speaker. Time lag since the speaker speaks when the sound is played back is 0.2 seconds.

"Our equipment can block human speech without causing any physical nuisance ," the two authors said.

SpeechJammer can "block the throat" of people talking in public libraries.

During the testing of the device, Kurihara and Tsukada also discovered many interesting things. For example, SpeechJammer works better for the speaker, not the speaker. Changing the time lag frequently also makes the device more efficient. SpeechJammer is 'helpless' if the speaker speaks meaningless sounds, like 'aaaargh'.

Kurihara and Tsukada have not considered the possibility of turning a device into a commercial product, but they think it can be used in many situations. For example, one could put SpeechJammer in a public library to maintain silence, or place it in the meeting room to shorten the time of the speaker so much that the speaker would have less opportunity to contribute. opinion. According to the two inventors, those who talked loudly and loudly at meetings could inadvertently deprive others of the opportunity to comment, increase the level of stress or boredom in the meeting.