Flipping the lab: Using consumer electronics for high-quality data collection

The second decade of the 21st Century has seen the rise of consumer technology capable of producing auditory signals at a level of precision only available to laboratory scientists and engineers just a few years earlier. This has allowed researchers to “flip the lab” and begin creating testing systems that can be taken to the participants rather than bringing the participants to the systems. Freely available tablet and smart-phone applications, as well as programmable virtual and augmented reality systems, are all poised to change that way that research is conducted. Research validating the existing approaches is ongoing and a task force has been established to track what is available and help guide potential users through potential pitfalls.