A Psychophysical Study of Sensory Saltation With an Open Response Paradigm

As we develop new haptic interfaces, it is desirable to present haptic information in an intuitive and effective manner. The sensory saltation phenomenon is a haptic spatiotemporal illusion that, with the appropriate spatial and timing parameters, evoke a powerful perception of directional lines. Efforts are underway to develop a general-purpose haptic display based on sensory saltation that can find application in many areas including a haptic driving navigation guidance system. The current study is designed to test the hypothesis that saltatory signals can be readily perceived by human observers without training. Using a 3-by-3 tactor array, horizontal, vertical and diagonal saltatory lines are generated. An open response paradigm is used to permit subjects to describe saltatory signals with their own imagination. Results show that the saltatory signals used in this study share unique and consistent interpretations among the group of observers tested. Future work include a follow up study of the same saltatory signals using a standard absolute identification paradigm. 1. INTRODUCTION For the past few years, we have been studying the sensory saltation phenomenon in an effort to develop a general-purpose haptic interface that can find a wide range of applications. There are several reasons why we choose to study this phenomenon. Firstly, sensory saltation provides a mechanism for displaying directional information that is highly intuitive. Compared with sensory aids for the deaf (for example, that require a user to learn unfamiliar tactile stimulation patterns, our saltatory display can be readily interpreted by naive observers. Secondly, the sensory saltation illusion can be evoked with relatively simple hardware configurations.