Multi-Sensory Haptic Perception on AIMS Haptic Testbed

This project investigates human perception of haptic, or touch, cues. In the field of haptics, there is a need for a standardized method to characterize haptic cues and assess human perception of these cues. Most haptic devices are characterized using methods that are unique to the experiment, making direct comparisons across studies challenging. To meet these needs, we have developed the AIMS (Adjustable Instrumented Multisensory Stimuli) Testbed, a modular and instrumented testbed that allows for flexible testing of and comparison between haptic cues. We believe this system can serve as a platform capable of reproducibly measuring the effects and interactions for a wide range of haptic devices and cue sets.

Our first experiments using this testing platform have focused on multi-sensory haptic systems. These systems have become popular because they have the potential to transfer a wide variety of information to a human user by simultaneously providing information using different haptic cue types. Multi-sensory haptic cues have the potential to transmit a wider variety of information in the same amount of time as single-sensory haptic cues. However, these cues also interfere with each other, causing them to feel less salient to users. As it is critical that the multisensory cues transmitted to a user are conspicuous, we use the AIMS Testbed to investigate the perception of multisensory haptic cues and how this perception changes when cues are modified. This project will inform future iterations of wearable haptic devices to produce distinguishable and clear multisensory haptic cues to users.

Relevant Publications:

  • Z. A. Zook, J. J. Fleck and M. K. O’Malley, “Effect of Tactile Masking on Multi-Sensory Haptic Perception,” in IEEE Transactions on Haptics, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 212-221, 1 Jan.-March 2022, doi: 10.1109/TOH.2021.3112509.
  • A. K. Low, Z. A. Zook, J. J. Fleck and M. K. O’Malley, “Effects of Interfering Cue Separation Distance and Amplitude on the Haptic Detection of Skin Stretch,” in IEEE Transactions on Haptics, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 254-259, 1 April-June 2021, doi: 10.1109/TOH.2021.3075387.
  • Z. A. Zook, J. J. Fleck, T. W. Tjandra and M. K. O’Malley, “Effect of Interference on Multi-Sensory Haptic Perception of Stretch and Squeeze,” 2019 IEEE World Haptics Conference (WHC), Tokyo, Japan, 2019, pp. 371-376, doi: 10.1109/WHC.2019.8816139.
  • J. J. Fleck, Z. A. Zook, T. W. Tjandra and M. K. O’Malley, “A Cutaneous Haptic Cue Characterization Testbed,” 2019 IEEE World Haptics Conference (WHC), Tokyo, Japan, 2019, pp. 319-324, doi: 10.1109/WHC.2019.8816086.