as a means of communication. Terminology It has been argued that the term "substitution" is misleading, as it is merely an "addition" or "supplementation" not a substitution of a sensory modality. Sensory augmentation Building upon the research conducted on sensory substitution, investigations into the possibility of augmenting the body's sensory apparatus are now beginning. The intention is to extend the body's ability to sense aspects of the environment that are not normally perceivable by the body in its natural state. Moreover, such new informations about the environment could be used not to directly replace a sensory organ but to offer a sensory information usually perceived via another, potentially harmed, sensory modality. Thus, also sensory augmentation is widely used for rehabilitation purposes as well as for investigating perceptive and cognitive neuroscience Active work in this direction is being conducted by, among others, the e-sense project of the Open University and Edinburgh University, the feelSpace project of the University of Osnabrück, and the hearSpace project at University of Paris. The findings of research into sensory augmentation (as well as sensory substitution in general) that investigate the emergence of perceptual experience (qualia) from the activity of neurons have implications for the understanding of consciousness. See also Biological neural network Brain implant Human echolocation, blind people navigating by listening to the echo of sounds References External links Tongue display for sensory substitution The vOICe auditory display for sensory substitution. Artificial Retinas Sensory Substitution:limits and perspectives C. Lenay et al. The Vibe feelSpace - The Magnetic Perception Group of the University of Osnabrück The Kromophone Sensory Substitution For Blind (Nihat Erim İnceoğlu) Sensory augmentation: integration of an auditory compass signal into human perception of space Cognitive neuroscience Biomedical engineering Neural engineering Neuroprosthetics