EarRumble: Discreet Hands- and Eyes-Free Input by Voluntary Tensor Tympani Muscle Contraction

Tobias  Röddiger; Christopher Clarke; Daniel Wolffram; Matthias Budde; Michael Beigl

doi:10.1145/3411764.3445205

EarRumble: Discreet Hands- and Eyes-Free Input by Voluntary Tensor Tympani Muscle Contraction

Tobias Röddiger, Christopher Clarke, Daniel Wolffram, Matthias Budde, Michael Beigl

Karlsruher Institut für Technologie

Research output: Chapter or section in a book/report/conference proceeding › Chapter in a published conference proceeding

10 Citations (SciVal)

1019 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

We explore how discreet input can be provided using the tensor tympani -a small muscle in the middle ear that some people can voluntarily contract to induce a dull rumbling sound.We investigate the prevalence and ability to control the muscle through an online questionnaire (N=192) in which 43.2% of respondents reported the ability to ear rumble. Data collected from participants (N=16) shows how in-ear barometry can be used to detect voluntary tensor tympani contraction in the sealed ear canal. This data was used to train a classifer based on three simple ear rumble gestures which achieved 95% accuracy. Finally, we evaluate the use of ear rumbling for interaction, grounded in three manual, dual-task application scenarios (N=8). This highlights the applicability of EarRumble as a low-efort and discreet eyes-and hands-free interaction technique that users found magical and almost telepathic.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	CHI 2021 - Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Subtitle of host publication	Making Waves, Combining Strengths
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery
Pages	1-14
Number of pages	14
ISBN (Electronic)	9781450380966
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445205
Publication status	Published - 6 May 2021

Publication series

Name	Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 ACM.

Keywords

Discreet interaction
Earables
Hearables
In-ear barometry
Subtle gestures
Tensor tympani muscle

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Human-Computer Interaction
Computer Graphics and Computer-Aided Design
Software

Access to Document

10.1145/3411764.3445205

EarRumble__Discreet_Hands__and_Eyes_Free_Input_by_Voluntary_Tensor_Tympani_Muscle_Contraction
© ACM, 2021. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in CHI '21: Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, {May 2021, Article no. 743} http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/3411764.3445205
Accepted author manuscript, 2.57 MB

Cite this

Röddiger, T., Clarke, C., Wolffram, D., Budde, M., & Beigl, M. (2021). EarRumble: Discreet Hands- and Eyes-Free Input by Voluntary Tensor Tympani Muscle Contraction. In CHI 2021 - Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: Making Waves, Combining Strengths (pp. 1-14). Article 743 (Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445205

EarRumble: Discreet Hands- and Eyes-Free Input by Voluntary Tensor Tympani Muscle Contraction. / Röddiger, Tobias ; Clarke, Christopher; Wolffram, Daniel et al.
CHI 2021 - Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: Making Waves, Combining Strengths. Association for Computing Machinery, 2021. p. 1-14 743 (Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings).

Research output: Chapter or section in a book/report/conference proceeding › Chapter in a published conference proceeding

Röddiger, T, Clarke, C, Wolffram, D, Budde, M & Beigl, M 2021, EarRumble: Discreet Hands- and Eyes-Free Input by Voluntary Tensor Tympani Muscle Contraction. in CHI 2021 - Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: Making Waves, Combining Strengths., 743, Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings, Association for Computing Machinery, pp. 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445205

Röddiger T, Clarke C, Wolffram D, Budde M, Beigl M. EarRumble: Discreet Hands- and Eyes-Free Input by Voluntary Tensor Tympani Muscle Contraction. In CHI 2021 - Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: Making Waves, Combining Strengths. Association for Computing Machinery. 2021. p. 1-14. 743. (Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings). doi: 10.1145/3411764.3445205

Röddiger, Tobias ; Clarke, Christopher ; Wolffram, Daniel et al. / EarRumble: Discreet Hands- and Eyes-Free Input by Voluntary Tensor Tympani Muscle Contraction. CHI 2021 - Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: Making Waves, Combining Strengths. Association for Computing Machinery, 2021. pp. 1-14 (Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings).

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EarRumble: Discreet Hands- and Eyes-Free Input by Voluntary Tensor Tympani Muscle Contraction

Abstract

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Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

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