Spatial discrimination of vibrotactile stimuli around the head

Oliveira, Victor Adriel de Jesus; Nedel, Luciana; Maciel, Anderson; Brayda, Luca

doi:10.1109/haptics.2016.7463147

Cited by 29 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…The results of the localization rates between different actuators showed that participants were more accurate in localizing actuators 3 and 4 that were closest to the midline of the body (RQ5). This enhanced spatial localization of vibrotactile stimuli close to the midline has earlier been demonstrated on the head [5], back, and abdomen [28]. In addition, in our study, the relative widths of gaze angles for the middlemost actuators tended to be more focused than the ones on the sides even though no statistically significant differences were found (RQ3).…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 43%

“…We did not position actuators on the body midline (i.e., above the nose) because it was used as a neutral start position for gaze before moving to the left or right. The distance between actuator centers on each group was set to 15 mm that should provide sufficient localization on the forehead [5]. The distance between the groups (i.e., actuators 3 and 4 in Fig.…”

Section: Prototypementioning

confidence: 99%

“…2) so that the actuators would be situated symmetrically on both sides of the vertical Fig. 1 Six vibrotactile actuators fixed into a flexible headband midline of the body that is known to facilitate accurate spatial localization of vibrotactile stimuli [5]. The actuators were set in two groups of three actuators, on both sides of the midline.…”

Section: Prototypementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The sensitivity also varies between different areas of the head. Spatial discrimination of stimulus location is easiest on the forehead where a distance of 15 mm between actuators has been found to be sufficient to feel a difference between stimulation points [5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recently, researchers have started to consider the head as a potential body site. To stimulate the head, actuators can be attached, for example, to glasses [2,18,21], hats [1], helmets [15], headbands [4,5,7,23], and head-mounted displays [6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Gaze Cueing with a Vibrotactile Headband for a Visual Search Task

2017

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Augmented attention, assisting the user in noticing important things, is one of the ways human action can be enhanced with technologies. We investigated how vibrotactile stimulation given to the forehead could be used to cue gaze direction. We built a vibrotactile headband with an array of six actuators that presented short, tap-like cues. In the first experiment, the participant was instructed to look at the point on a horizontal line that they thought the vibrotactile cue was pointing to. Analysis of the participant's gaze points showed that for the majority there were statistically significant differences between cues from different actuators. This indicated that the six actuators could successfully direct the participant's gaze to different areas of the visual field. In addition, vibrotactile cueing of gaze direction could be used for directing visual attention and providing navigation cues with wearable headbands. To strengthen our findings, we investigated how effective the vibrotactile stimulation would be to cue gaze direction in a visual search task. Participant's were asked to find a deviant shape (a target) from a display full of simple shapes. The vibrotactile cueing implemented with the headband device was used to inform the participants of the approximate horizontal position of the target in three different experimental conditions. In the most informative condition, six actuators were used to inform the participant of the horizontal area where the target would be found, in the second condition two actuators were used to inform the participant of the target side on the display (left or right), and in the least informative condition no directional information was given. Analysis of the trial completion times showed that there were statistically significant differences between the least informative condition and the two other conditions. However, we did not find significant differences in trial completion times between the two conditions where information of the target location was given. This indicated that while the actuators could successfully direct the participant's attention to different areas of the visual field to help in the search task, the simple approach of just adding actuators and dividing the visual field to more sub-areas did not improve the results. The findings of this study showed that while there is potential in using vibrotactile cueing of gaze direction, more research is needed to fully exploit it.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 43%

Section: Prototypementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Prototypementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%