Tactile Feedback of Object Slip Facilitates Virtual Object Manipulation

Recent advances in myoelectric prosthetic technology have enabled more complex movements and interactions with objects, but the lack of natural haptic feedback makes object manipulation difficult to perform. Our research effort aims to develop haptic feedback systems for improving user performance in object manipulation. Specifically, in this work, we explore the effectiveness of vibratory tactile feedback of slip information for grasping objects without slipping. A user interacts with a virtual environment to complete a virtual grasp and hold task using a Sensable Phantom. Force feedback simulates contact with objects, and vibratory tactile feedback alerts the user when a virtual object is slipping from the grasp. Using this task, we found that tactile feedback significantly improved a user's ability to detect and respond to slip and to recover the slipping object when visual feedback was not available. This advantage of tactile feedback is especially important in conjunction with force feedback, which tends to reduce a subject's grasping forces and therefore encourage more slips. Our results demonstrate the potential of slip feedback to improve a prosthesis user's ability to interact with objects with less visual attention, aiding in performance of everyday manipulation tasks.