Conveying intentions through haptics in human-computer collaboration

Abstract

Haptics has been used as a natural way for humans to communicate with computers in collaborative virtual environments. Humancomputer collaboration is typically achieved by sharing control of the task between a human and a computer operator. An important research challenge in the field addresses the need to realize intention recognition and response, which involves a decision making process between the partners. In an earlier study [11], we implemented a dynamic role exchange mechanism, which realizes decision making by means of trading the parties' control levels on the task. This mechanism proved to show promise of a more intuitive and comfortable communication. Here, we extend our earlier work to further investigate the utility of a role exchange mechanism in dynamic collaboration tasks. An experiment with 30 participants was conducted to compare the utility of a role exchange mechanism with that of a shared control scheme where the human and the computer share control equally at all times. A no guidance condition is considered as a base case to present the benefits of these two guidance schemes more clearly. Our experiment show that the role exchange scheme maximizes the efficiency of the user, which is the ratio of the work done by the user within the task to the energy spent by her. Furthermore, we explored the added benefits of explicitly displaying the control state by embedding visual and vibrotactile sensory cues on top of the role exchange scheme. We observed that such cues decrease performance slightly, probably because they introduce an extra cognitive load, yet they improve the users' sense of collaboration and interaction with the computer. These cues also create a stronger sense of trust for the user towards her partner's control over the task.

The role of roles: Physical cooperation between humans and robots

“…The questionnaire consists of 20 questions taken from NASA-TLX task load index (Hart and Stavenland, 1988) as well as those developed by Kucukyilmaz et al (2011). The subjects indicate their level of agreement or disagreement on a 7-point Likert scale for a series of questions, some of which are rephrased and asked again within the questionnaire in an arbitrary order.…”

Supporting Negotiation Behavior with Haptics-Enabled Human-Computer Interfaces

“…Oguz et al [10] proposed a role exchange model for dynamic dyadic interaction between a computer and a human, where the computer offers haptic assistance based on the intent of the human partner. Later, Kucukyilmaz et al [11] further showed that explicitly displaying the role state to the partners improves the sense of collaboration and creates a stronger sense of trust toward the computer. Evrard and Kheddar [12] investigated human-robot haptic interaction and offered a model that allows the robot partner to switch between leader and follower roles during the execution of a task.…”

“…2) is similar to the one presented in our earlier work [10], [11]. The human control is supplied to the system through a PHANToM Omni device, which is used to control the Haptic Interface Point (HIP) in our physics-based model.…”

“…The physics-based model used in this game differs from our previous work [10], [11] in two ways. First, players can control their IPs only on the x-axis.…”

Intention Recognition for Dynamic Role Exchange in Haptic Collaboration

“…In this study, we extend the work presented in [5] to further evaluate the benefits and the usability of a RE mechanism as a shared control scheme. As a testbed, we used a target-hitting task, and developed a model for haptic collaboration in which the human and the computer interact through force to achieve a common goal by dynamically exchanging roles.…”