Investigating Social Haptic Illusions for Tactile Stroking (SHIFTS)
This work addresses the design of wearable haptic devices for social communication, but it is incremental as it builds on existing haptic illusion techniques.
The study compared sequential normal indentation and lateral skin-slip haptic methods to replicate forearm stroking sensations, finding that lateral skin-slip created a more continuous sensation and continuity decreased with fewer contact points in a test with 20 participants.
A common and effective form of social touch is stroking on the forearm. We seek to replicate this stroking sensation using haptic illusions. This work compares two methods that provide sequential discrete stimulation: sequential normal indentation and sequential lateral skin-slip using discrete actuators. Our goals are to understand which form of stimulation more effectively creates a continuous stroking sensation, and how many discrete contact points are needed. We performed a study with 20 participants in which they rated sensations from the haptic devices on continuity and pleasantness. We found that lateral skin-slip created a more continuous sensation, and decreasing the number of contact points decreased the continuity. These results inform the design of future wearable haptic devices and the creation of haptic signals for effective social communication.