The Background - Artificial Human Sensors: Science and Applications - page 26

with no or little concern about the flavour and the process of food traditions, and
especially appreciating the sensation of a nice dinner. The fact that many people
are not able to describe the flavour of food or liquid is alarming and further, they
are not able to communicate that impression to other individuals or receive other
peoples sensational experiences.
The stress factor is considered to be one of the major issues that block the full
possibility to obtain impressions from the surroundings and have the ability to
focus on certain sensing impressions less possible.
This application section has the task to let the reader understand the underly-
ing processes of focusing on themself and often subjective abilities regarding the
process of perceptual awareness and attention. These simple tests can be executed
at their best convenience and the user may reflect on the responses, based on their
own individual status.
This type of perception oriented activities can be used to gain a relaxing con-
cept and when stressing down also provide the possibility to experience the per-
ceptual capabilities when, for example, focusing on the vision, smell, and hearing
senses.
The following exercises may, however, be an illustrative example of getting
to know your individual perceptual performance level and explore the specific
sensing abilities. It has been argued earlier that there is specifically a rich variety
in an individual's perceptual performance that depends on many circumstances,
e.g., age, gender, social aspects and geographical causes.
An illustrative example of a relaxing exercise is derived from the Zen medi-
tation and is described below. To be effective, this exercise requires at least 5 to
10 minutes and can be executed by old as well as young people.
Wear loose fitting clothing, with bare feet and stand in a, preferably outdoor
environment as quietly as possible, look at a long-distant object and feel comfort-
able and unstressed.
Put your thumbs in front of you with straight arms and observe that you are
able to use the long and short vision simultaneously by looking at your thumbs
and a chosen long distance object. As focusing on the far object and the thumbs,
you may discover the wide vision abilities by slowly, with stretched arms, moving
the thumbs in a circular horizontal movement.
Start to slowly move forward in a suitable direction, continuously focusing on
the far object. Put one foot in front of the other as shown in Fig. 1.9. First put
the heel on the ground, simultaneously release the heel of the back foot. Slowly
put the weight on the whole front foot and balance on the toes of the back foot.
Then repeat the sequence by putting the next foot slowly in front of the first one
using a speed of approximately one foot print per 30 seconds. During the exercise,
focus on the far visual object and then put your hands in contact with your skin
on the stomach, or simply put them together. Then consider the effect after the
exercise, and experience the overall feeling from the different perceptual senses,
e.g., the smell and hearing impressions. The time relaxing moment as illustrated
in Fig. 1.10 can be executed in a varying outdoor location after a jogging session or