Title
Haptic discrimination of force direction and the influence of visual information
Abstract
Despite a wealth of literature on discrimination thresholds for displacement, force magnitude, stiffness, and viscosity, there is currently a lack of data on our ability to discriminate force directions. Such data are needed in designing haptic rendering algorithms where force direction, as well as force magnitude, are used to encode information such as surface topography. Given that haptic information is typically presented in addition to visual information in a data perceptualization system, it is also important to investigate the extent to which the congruency of visual information affects force-direction discrimination. In this article, the authors report an experiment on the discrimination threshold of force directions under the three display conditions of haptics alone (H), haptics plus congruent vision (HVcong), and haptics plus incongruent vision (HVincong). Average force-direction discrimination thresholds were found to be 18.4°, 25.6°, and 31.9° for the HVcong, H and HVincong conditions, respectively. The results show that the congruency of visual information significantly affected haptic discrimination of force directions, and that the force-direction discrimination thresholds did not seem to depend on the reference force direction. The implications of the results for designing haptic virtual environments, especially when the numbers of sensors and actuators in a haptic display do not match, are discussed.
Year
DOI
Venue
2006
10.1145/1141897.1141901
TAP
Keywords
Field
DocType
average force-direction discrimination threshold,force-direction discrimination threshold,force magnitude,haptic and visual interaction,visual information,additional key words and phrases: force direction,reference force direction,force-direction discrimination,discriminate force direction,discrimination threshold,haptic rendering,psychophysics,haptic discrimination,force direction,virtual environment,surface topography
Computer vision,Computer science,Haptic rendering,Stiffness,Simulation,Artificial intelligence,Haptic display,Psychophysics,Haptic technology,Stereotaxy
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
3
2
1544-3558
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
35
1.90
4
Authors
5
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Federico Barbagli156148.21
John Kenneth Salisbury Jr.21403200.30
Cristy Ho313311.93
Charles Spence4597.26
Hong Z. Tan5706124.32