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A speech jammer is a device that inhibits a user from speaking in coherent sentences due to the user hearing their own voice played back to them with a slight delay.

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The Noise Audio Recorders Won't Like

Audio jammers are popular tools used during confidential meetings. They produce a unique sound for masking and protecting conversations from external listening devices, such as a smartphone running an audio recording app, hidden in one of your guests' pocket.

The sound of a jammer should be very difficult to filter out or remove when present in an audio recording. While commercial audio jammers often rely on white noise , this generator, however, uses a more efficient sound with articulation similar to speech. It is also buried under severe distortion, which makes recovery algorithms have a hard time producing exploitable results.

For further privacy, increase the generator's volume to play louder than your voice. Then, if you are holding a conversation in person, speak quietly, and very close to your partner so they hear you over the sound.

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Researchers build 'SpeechJammer' gun that relays words back to the speaker in milliseconds

Researchers in japan have developed a device known as the speechjammer, which can pause human speech by recording and relaying their words back within milliseconds..

By Chris Welch , a reviewer specializing in personal audio and home theater. Since 2011, he has published nearly 6,000 articles, from breaking news and reviews to useful how-tos.

Source SpeechJammer (pdf) | Via MIT Technology Review

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Using fairly rudimentary tools, Japanese researchers have created a device which has proven effective at cutting off human speech without the need for physical intervention. The "SpeechJammer," as it's called, looks more like something a police officer would rely on to measure your speed as opposed to what it's actually built for.

How does it work, exactly? Essentially, the SpeechJammer uses our own words against us. It's generally understood that speech is easily interrupted (or "jammed") when our words are recorded and repeated back to us within milliseconds of initially being uttered. As explained in a paper by a pair of Japanese researchers, this artificial delay — known as Delayed Auditory Feedback — is said to have a direct impact on cognitive processess in the brain. The SpeechJammer takes that idea mobile.

An initial prototype combined a microphone and speaker within an acrylic case, which communicated with a host PC that handled delay and playback duties. Both the mic and speaker were directional, enabling the device to target a specific individual. It wasn't long before the researchers had a second SpeechJammer model, this time featuring a built-in motherboard that offered a tether-free experience. As for potential use cases, the paper cites public libraries and unruly discussions as examples of where such a device could come in handy. Sadly, there's no mention of plans to offer a commercial version of SpeechJammer. We wouldn't mind carrying one around for the occasional longwinded keynote presentation.

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Speech Jammer Brings Talkers' Brains to Stuttering Halt

Some people never know when to shut up during meetings, movies or while yammering away on the phone at public libraries. Now Japanese scientists have come up with a portable speech-jamming gun that forces obnoxious talkers to come to a stuttering halt.

The "SpeechJammer" device uses a direction-sensitive microphone and speaker to silence talkers with their own words — a psychological trick that creates a delay between the time talkers speak and the time when they hear the words coming out of their mouths. The hearing delay trips up the brain's thinking processes and causes the person to stutter.

It's like hacking people's minds, rather than using a cell phone jammer to disable talkers' mobile gadgets.

Such a clever gadget could impose a blessed silence in public spaces and at meetings, so that even the quietest people can take turns having their say or simply enjoy the lack of noise. The breakthrough was first reported by Technology Review , which threw in its own suggestion for installing the device at the United Nations.

A preliminary study showed that the speech jammer could easily shut up people doing a "reading news aloud" task, but had less success in silencing someone who was speaking a "spontaneous monologue." That's good news for people who hate long, boring prepared speeches, but perhaps less comforting for anyone who wants to shut up spontaneous talkers.

The Japanese researchers — Kazutaka Kurihara at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tskuba and Koji Tsukada at Ochanomizu University — see their invention as a conflict-resolution system that promotes peaceful dialogue.

But like any technology, there are obvious ways to abuse the speech jammer. Troublemakers could potentially use it to disrupt public speeches or at political rallies, making speakers stutter as painfully as Colin Firth during 2011's Oscar-winning film " The King's Speech ."

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On the bright side, the speech jammer fails to shut down meaningless sound sequences uttered by people. That allows anyone who has had enough of enforced silence or garbled talking to run away screaming "Aaaaaaaaaah!"

This story was provided by InnovationNewsDaily , a sister site to LiveScience. Follow InnovationNewsDaily on Twitter @ News_Innovation , or on Facebook .

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Speech Jammer 4+

Speech jammer tongue twisters, dwight dickinson.

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Speech Jammer echos your voice back using an adjustable delay, making it very difficult (or impossible) to talk. The more you spontaneously and continuously talk with the Speech Jammer, the harder talking becomes. This is known as Delayed Auditory Feedback or DAF. Think you're a smooth talker? The humour from one person experiencing the original Speech Jammer will quickly spread around the room, but the effect has to be experienced first-hand. Speech Jammer offers • Adjustable delay to impair speech • Tongue twisters to make it even more difficult • Ability to record Speech Jammer sessions • Share recordings with friends via iMessage, Text, E-Mail, Facebook, Twitter, copied link or iTunes • Compatibility with bluetooth headphones and AirPods • Ability to completely disable the delay and echo your voice back with almost no delay. Speech Jammer works best with noise cancelling headphones, and headphones with the microphone built-in. If you cannot get proper results, try adjusting the slider. Wired headphones are recommended. Having issues or have a suggestion? Please contact me by tapping App Support on the App Store page. I'm always open for suggestions, and can always use your help investigating crashes.

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High pitched noises :(.

I started using it and it made a really loud and high pitched noise that hurt my ears it was so bad the it screwed up my phones sound.

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Not much more than a novelty lol item but it does what it’s supposed to do and is quite funny. It’s free so why not check it out with nothing to lose... good all round fun app.

At first i was unsure at how it worked but i tried it on my family and it was such a laugh great fun

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September 21, 2012

IgNobel Prize winner in Acoustics: The SpeechJammer. The shut up machine for the passive aggressive.

By Scicurious

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American

This year’s IgNobel prize in Acoustics went to Kruihara and Tsukada, of Japan, for an invention straight out of a sci fi movie: The SpeechJammer.

(clip from Spaceballs: we’ve been Jammed!)

Have you ever had to listen to someone who just won’t. Shut. Up. Have you ever been stuck in a library or on the quiet car of a train, giving passive aggressive dirty looks to talkative passerby? Well suffer no more from lack of silence! This speechjammer will solve all of your problems, using the power of SCIENCE.

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(Also comes in handheld!)

How does it work? How do you stop other people from talking without going “SHH!”. What you need is delayed auditory feedback. When we speak, we not only generate sound, but we rely on auditory feedback to make sure that what we are saying is coming out right. If we suffer problems with auditory feedback, such as a very short delay between the production of speech and hearing it, we will begin to stutter and eventually come to a stop.

So all you have to do if you want to shut someone up is induce some delayed auditory feedback. The designers of this device invented a microphone hooked up to a speaker, aimed at the person chattering (in the portable version, this looks a lot like those guns they use to track whether or not you’re speeding on the highway). The microphone records the chatter and induces a small delay (which you can control, depending on the distance from your target, so you get the maximal interference), and then plays your own voice back at you.

They even let me test it! And I have to say it's a very disconcerting experience. As one of the authors noted, we really don't like the sound of our own voice talking over us.

So what would be use of such a device? Well, apart from the obvious uses by passive aggressive people in quiet spaces, the author propose a potential use for helping to moderate things like group debate. When you need someone to shut up and given someone else a turn, you can turn the SpeechJammer on them and watch them lapse into silence. The psychological effects of the SpeechJammer on the person who want quiet should be pretty positive. But the psychological effects on those made to shut remains to be seen.

The Sound Gun That Will Leave You Speechless

A new device uses an auditory phenomenon to silence people remotely

Joseph Stromberg

For those who have suffered sitting next to bad mannered talkers at movie theaters or endured distracting chatter at the library, a pair of researchers from Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology and Ochanomizu University have the device for you: the SpeechJammer. A paper published last week by Kazutaka Kurihara and Koji Tsukada detailed the unusual invention, seemingly from the realm of science fiction. If silence is golden, the SpeechJammer is a modern-day Midas.

The SpeechJammer prototype can “jam” the voices of speakers as far as 100 feet away by using a phenomenon we know well from phone calls with an echo. When the gun’s user pulls the trigger, a sensitive directional microphone records the speech of the target, and a powerful directional speaker projects it right back at the target, fractions of a second later. Because it’s virtually impossible to talk when we’re hearing our own delayed words— a principle known as Delayed Auditory Feedback —the gun effectively leaves the target speechless.

The device’s capacity to jam speech was confirmed in a preliminary study with five participants. The researchers extol the device’s ability to precisely silence a single speaker from a distance, without causing any pain. “The system can disturb remote people’s speech without any physical discomfort,” they wrote. “Furthermore, this effect does not involve anyone but the speaker.”

Potential applications for the device are varied; the researchers suggest it could be used to enforce silence in settings like public libraries and trains, and moderate formal discussions or debates. ”Some people tend to lengthen their turns or deliberately interrupt other people when it is their turn in order to establish their presence rather than achieve more fruitful discussions,” the paper notes. At future political debates, perhaps, the SpeechJammer could be aimed at candidates who attempt to talk past the buzzer.

But across the blogosphere, writers have dreamed up other possible uses that are stranger, and perhaps a little unsettling. ”There are still many cases in which the negative aspects of speech become a barrier to the peaceful resolution of conflicts, sometimes further harming society,” the researchers argue.  Could audience members be remotely silenced by arrays of SpeechJammers ? Could crowds of protestors at a political rally be rendered silent at will ?

The effectiveness of the SpeechJammer has one exception, though: In the study, speakers were still able to emit meaningless sound sequences such as “ahhhh” when subject to the weapon. If nothing else, this will enable crowds of upset, silenced people to show their displeasure—by saying “booooooo.”

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Joseph Stromberg | | READ MORE

Joseph Stromberg was previously a digital reporter for Smithsonian .

Hypersonic Speech Jammer Works At A Distance

Speech jammers were a meme a little while back. By feeding back delayed voice audio to a person’s ears, it makes it near-impossible for most people to speak, as our speech system runs on a continual feedback loop. [Benn Jordan] decided to try reworking that concept by replacing headphones with a directed sound projector.

The key to the project is the use of hypersonic sound arrays. These essentially use high-frequency sound beyond the human range of hearing to carry a lower-frequency sound signal. By essentially modulating this higher-frequency carrier to create the perception of lower-frequency sound, it’s possible to create an audible signal that is highly directional. It’s like a “sound laser” that can be pointed directly at a person to allow them to hear it, which is then inaudible when pointed slightly away.

These allow the delayed voice signal to be fired at a person’s head with a relatively narrow spatial spread. When an individual speaks into a microphone hooked up to the device, delayed audio is sent through the hypersonic array back to the speaker’s ears, garbling their speech as their brain gets confused by the feedback.

[Benn] demonstrated the device in public by offering random individuals $100 to read a paragraph out of a book. The speech jammer worked a treat, and [Benn] was able to keep his money… until one amazingly immune individual breezed through the test. Check out our prior coverage of speech jamming technology. Video after the break.

[Thanks to Hyperific for the tip!]

19 thoughts on “ Hypersonic Speech Jammer Works At A Distance ”

Being deaf does have some perk. I can still speak decently with hearing aids turned off so I guess those speech jammer may not work on me.

I was born nearly profoundly deaf (hearing loss at 100dB at low frequency to 125dB at 3KHz, nothing above 3KHz) and with early education program and hearing aids I was able to learn to speak. The drawback of being deaf at my level is I can’t just listen to the sound and know what’s being spoken so radio, telephone, and other long distance conversation falls on my deaf ears (literal not proverbial). Because of this, sound jammer would seem to sound like gibberish to my ears and not interfere with my ability to read and speak.

You should go find this guy ;)

I have a slight hearing impairment too (nothing too bad) and when I tested this kind of speech jammers, it does annoy me, but I can plow through it without much hassle.

Hypersonic?

I think that was meant to be spelled “ultrasonic”. It still travels at the sound of speed, it just wiggles faster ;-)

While probably deadly effective, it’s definitely not advised to shoot the person at the podium with a rail gun.

To be fair, that would also be pretty effective at preventing speech. 😃

(Aside: isn’t the principle of this ultrasonic (not hypersonic) device similar to the method used by Lex Luthor in Superman 1 when he broadcast a message that only Superman could hear?)

I probably missed the cultural reference -if you’re making a joke-, but hypersonic is a field of engineering in which audible sound is generated using the interference of several supersonic waves.

That would be exclusively “American Technology Corporation HyperSonicTM Sound” because hypersonic refers to traveling more than 5 times the speed of sound.

I double check your tag for “speech jammer” the older article the tag was “speechjammer” no space so they don’t both show up on the tag pages for each other.

this would be useful for political debates. or riot control, shut down the rabble rousers. use for evil? yea probibly.

The best part is that for political debates, the speech is pregarbled.

This is like having to work with Motorola digital radios. The delay and sharp digital bandpass filter, I can “hear some words” and talking is difficult for many

I’ve seen some videos of people interacting with speech jammers, the ones with a lot of broadcast radio experience (people who routinely wear headphones and listen to themselves) are essentially immune to the jamming.

This is not new technology as “conspiracy theorists” will tell you. Think of Bose noise cancellation or the dual microphone setup you can see in The Grateful Dead Movie.

The jammer would have no effect on most politicians, they don’t appear to have any way to interrupt their own mouth.

For some politicians I think the main reason it does not work is, that the speech jammer is intended to confuse the brains. Which some people seem to lack :-)

Since most politicians seem to be pregarbled, maybe the garble function would make what they say make sense.

That would definitely confuse them.

Often some not so good handsfree telephone systems have this effect on me, when the echo cancellation is working only half way. This really confuse wehn you try to speak.

Reminds me when analog FXO cards was a thing for VOIP. You either had your echo cancellation right or the phone system was borderline unusable.

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How to Build a Speech-Jamming Gun

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The drone of speakers who won’t stop is an inevitable experience at conferences, meetings, cinemas, and public libraries. 

Today, Kazutaka Kurihara at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tskuba and Koji Tsukada at Ochanomizu University, both in Japan, present a radical solution: a speech-jamming device that forces recalcitrant speakers into submission. 

The idea is simple. Psychologists have known for some years that it is almost impossible to speak when your words are replayed to you with a delay of a fraction of a second. 

Kurihara and Tsukada have simply built a handheld device consisting of a microphone and a speaker that does just that: it records a person’s voice and replays it to them with a delay of about 0.2 seconds. The microphone and speaker are directional, so the device can be aimed at a speaker from a distance, like a gun. 

In tests, Kurihara and Tsukada say their speech-jamming gun works well: “The system can disturb remote people’s speech without any physical discomfort.”  

Their tests also identify some curious phenomena. They say the gun is more effective when the delay varies in time and more effective against speech that involves reading aloud than against spontaneous monologue. Sadly, they report that it has no effect on meaningless sound sequences such as “aaaaarghhh.”

Kurihara and Tsukada make no claims about the commercial potential of their device but  list various applications. They say it could be used to maintain silence in public libraries and to “facilitate discussion” in group meetings. “We have to establish and obey rules for proper turn-taking when speaking,” they say.   

That has important implications. “There are still many cases in which the negative aspects of speech become a barrier to the peaceful resolution of conflicts, ” they point out. 

Clearly, speech jamming has a significant future role in contributing to world peace and should obviously be installed at the United Nations with immediate effect. 

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The Navy Invented a Device to Prevent People From Talking

The system can get very sneaky by repeating anything a speaker says milliseconds after it’s said.

Gear-obsessed editors choose every product we review. We may earn commission if you buy from a link. Why Trust Us?

• The Navy filed a patent for a device that makes it difficult for most people to speak.
• The device repeats anything a speaker says milliseconds after it’s said, disrupting a person’s concentration.
• The device is one of many types of nonlethal weapons designed to affect people without seriously injuring or killing them.

The U.S. Navy has invented a new device to prevent people from speaking, one that people with siblings will recognize instantly. The handheld acoustic hailing and disruption device records a person’s speech and spits it back out again, disrupting their concentration and discouraging them from speaking further. Although an interesting—and very familiar—concept it’s unlikely this tech will ever see use on the battlefield.

The patent filing describes the system like this:

According to an illustrative embodiment of the present disclosure, a target’s speech is directed back to them twice, once immediately and once after a short delay. This delay creates delayed auditory feedback (DAF), which alters the speaker’s normal perception of their own voice. In normal speech, a speaker hears their own words with a slight delay, and the body is accustomed to this feedback. By introducing another audio feedback source with a sufficiently long delay, the speaker's concentration is disrupted and it becomes difficult to continue speaking.

The patent filing even includes a link to this video, which demonstrates the process.

Anyone with a brother or sister will recognize this technology right away. AHAD is basically a computerized sibling, repeating whatever the speaker says immediately after he or she says it, in a funny or disturbing voice. The only difference is that a sibling does it simply to irritate another family member, while a government agency using the system might use it to shut down a riot or other unlawful assembly.

The system can get very sneaky, as the filing explains: “By utilizing directional microphones and speakers, only a target speaker’s voice will be picked up by the system, and only a target speaker will hear the transmitted audio.” A person targeted by AHAD might be stunned into silence by the technology and baffled that no one in their vicinity can hear what they’re hearing. Those around them might be equally baffled that the person has stopped speaking, seemingly without reason. In other words, it can make you think you’re crazy, and make people around you think you’re crazy.

The disruption technique works best if the machine repeats speech a syllable behind the speaker cadence. Oddly enough it doesn’t work at all for some people, perhaps those with Mick Jagger-levels of self confidence, and actually makes some people even better speakers. The effect is not consistent enough to make the technology worth pursuing beyond the laboratory.

The technology has some other applications. It can be used as a regular acoustic hailing device, perhaps to give instructions to another ship or initiate a conversation. More intriguingly, “ By aiming AHAD system at a wall or corner, AHAD system can also project sound to the target surface such that audio appears to originate from the target.”

AHAD falls under the category of nonlethal weapons systems, weapons designed to achieve a desired effect without causing permanent damage. The U.S. Navy has deployed other nonlethal sonic weapons, including the Long Range Acoustic Device, which can transmit focused sonic waves at very high decibel levels, causing pain. The pain causes people to flee an area, and can have lingering physical effects , including migraines and ringing in the ears, for up to a week.

— Read more at New Scientist

🎥 Now Watch This:

Kyle Mizokami is a writer on defense and security issues and has been at Popular Mechanics since 2015. If it involves explosions or projectiles, he's generally in favor of it. Kyle’s articles have appeared at The Daily Beast, U.S. Naval Institute News, The Diplomat, Foreign Policy, Combat Aircraft Monthly, VICE News , and others. He lives in San Francisco.

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Voice jammer stops anyone from recording you speak

An artificial intelligence voice jammer can unobtrusively block microphones recording a single voice in an area, avoiding causing wider disruption that might tip people off

By Matthew Sparkes

29 July 2022

Using artificial intelligence to produce the right pattern of sound can render a voice unrecordable

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A voice jammer can now stop anyone recording the speech of a single target person.

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Computer Science > Human-Computer Interaction

Title: speechjammer: a system utilizing artificial speech disturbance with delayed auditory feedback.

Abstract: In this paper we report on a system, "SpeechJammer", which can be used to disturb people's speech. In general, human speech is jammed by giving back to the speakers their own utterances at a delay of a few hundred milliseconds. This effect can disturb people without any physical discomfort, and disappears immediately by stop speaking. Furthermore, this effect does not involve anyone but the speaker. We utilize this phenomenon and implemented two prototype versions by combining a direction-sensitive microphone and a direction-sensitive speaker, enabling the speech of a specific person to be disturbed. We discuss practical application scenarios of the system, such as facilitating and controlling discussions. Finally, we argue what system parameters should be examined in detail in future formal studies based on the lessons learned from our preliminary study.

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