Tactile Sensitivity to Distributed Patterns in a Palm

Abstract

Tactile information in a palm is a necessary component in manipulating and perceiving large or heavy objects. Noting this, we investigate human sensitivity to tactile haptic feedback in a palm for an improved user interface design. To provide distributed tactile pattern, we propose an ungrounded haptic interface, which can stimulate multiple locations in a palm, independently. Two experiments were conducted to evaluate human sensitivity to distributed tactile patterns. The first experiment tested participants’ sensitivity to tactile patterns by sub-sections in a palm, and a significant effect of the sub-section on the sensitivity was observed. In the second experiment, participants identified pressure distribution patterns in the palm collected from real-life objects with the percent correct of 71.4 % and IT (information transfer) was 1.58 bits.