We developed a novel sensory augmentation device, the hearSpace app, which allows users to reliably hear the direction of magnetic North as a stable sound object in external space using a headphone.
Short training with this magnetic-auditory augmentation signal leads to long-lasting recalibration of the vestibular perception of space, either extending or compressing the felt space.
This novel approach to sensory augmentation, contingency-mimetics, piggy-backs the directional information of a geomagnetic compass on ecological sensory cues of distal sounds. This allows the magnetic augmentation signal to integrate into the existing spatial processes via natural mechanisms of auditory localization.