Spatiotemporal Perception of Single Overlapped Vibrotactile Stimulation to Multiple Body Locations

Abstract

Haptic information is useful in various fields, and presenting stimulation to multiple points enriches the experience. Independent Vibrotactile Stimulation to multiple points (IVS) evokes a tactile apparent motion. We propose Single Overlapped Vibrotactile Stimulation (SOVS) with imagination to produce spatiotemporal perception like IVS. The SOVS combines the stimulation of IVS. We developed a pseudo-dribbling system that produces a feeling of an imaginary ball moving between the hand and the feet where the same stimulation was given. To examine the feeling by SOVS, the first experiment on changing the speed of the stimulation showed the SOVS can produce a similar feeling to the IVS, indicating SOVS allows participants to match the perceived stimulation to the stimulation according to the dribbling being imagined. The second experiment was conducted using an obstacle between the hand and the feet to interrupt the image. We controlled the interruption by controlling attention. Results showed that both IVS and SOVS overcome the obstacle to evoke a piercing feeling under the attention to the floor, whereas IVS still provided a piercing feeling under the attention to the obstacle but SOVS could not provide it, suggesting the possibility that the perception mechanism is different between the SOVS and IVS.

Download PDF ⇩

Accepted manuscript. © 2023 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.

DOI

Part of the project

• 

  Whole-body haptics · 2022–

  SOVS — Single Overlapped Vibrotactile Stimulation

  An overlapped vibration signal composing different information is delivered to several body sites at once. In the pseudo-dribbling case it makes you feel a ball that isn't there — and the same principle is where the work continues.

Takumi Kuhara — Doctoral Student, Nagoya Institute of Technology