The device was developed based on a

study conducted by the neuroscientists to map brain areas that integrate the sight and touch of a looming object and aid in their understanding of the perceptual and neural mechanisms of .
But for the rest of us, the researchers said, it has a more practical purpose: The device can be synchronized with entertainment content, such as movies, music, games and virtual reality, to deliver immersive multisensory effects near the face and enhance the sense of presence.
The advance is described in a paper published online February 6 in the journal Human Brain Mapping by Ruey-Song Huang and Ching-fu Chen, neuroscientists at UC San Diego's Institute for Neural Computation, and Martin Sereno, the former chair of neuroimaging at University College London and a former professor at UC San Diego, now at San Diego State University.