Phantom Illusion based Vibrotactile Rendering of Affective Touch Patterns

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Abstract

Physically accurate (authentic) reproduction of affective touch patterns on the forearm is limited by actuator technology. However, in most VR applications a direct comparison with actual touch is not possible. Here, the plausibility is only compared to the user's expectation. Focusing on the approach of plausible instead of authentic touch reproduction enables new rendering techniques, like the utilization of the phantom illusion to create the sensation of moving vibrations. Following this idea, a haptic armband array (4x2 vibrational actuators) was built to investigate the possibilities of recreating plausible affective touch patterns with vibration. The novel aspect of this work is the approach of touch reproduction with a parameterized rendering strategy, enabling the integration in VR. A first user study evaluates suitable parameter ranges for vibrational touch rendering. Duration of vibration and signal shape influence plausibility the most. A second user study found high plausibility ratings in a multimodal scenario and confirmed the expressiveness of the system. Rendering device and strategy are suitable for a various stroking patterns and applicable for emerging research on social affective touch reproduction.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-13
Number of pages13
JournalIEEE Transactions on Haptics
Volume17
Issue number2
Publication statusPublished - 2023
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

Mendeley a68af9eb-d136-35e6-a855-84ad91e3eb96
ORCID /0000-0002-3496-441X/work/154739010
ORCID /0000-0001-8409-5390/work/154742089
ORCID /0000-0002-0803-8818/work/154742419

Keywords

Keywords

  • Actuators, Affective touch reproduction, haptic display, Haptic interfaces, haptic rendering, phantom illusion, Phantoms, Rendering (computer graphics), Skin, Vibrations, vibrotactile feedback, Visualization