What is a speech jammer?

A speech jammer is a device that interferes with a person's speech process by recording what the person is saying and playing it back within a fraction of a second. The resulting psychological disturbance causes an inability to concentrate and is disruptive enough to make a speaker stop talking.

The speech jammer is composed of a directional microphone, a time-delay integrated circuit and a directional speaker to play back the sound it records. The device was developed by researchers from Ochanomizu University and the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tskuba, Japan. The inventors won a 2012 Nobel Prize for acoustics.