Generation of effective vibrotactile stimuli to convey information

Abstract

Haptics is a promising research area for conveying information, such as abstract concepts and emotions. Haptic icons are compared with visual and auditory icons, but design approaches of haptic icons are different from visual and auditory icons due to the difficulty of getting variety and intuitiveness of icons. Since most of previous research could not support variety and intuitiveness of haptic icons, we proposed a practical design strategy for haptic icons and showed how to expand vibrotactile stimuli design space with practical vibrotactile design parameters. The proposed design strategy was summarized in three steps: (1) expanding vibrotactile stimuli design space as large as possible by generating physically distinguishable stimuli based on the combination among micro and macro design parameters; (2) shrinking design space from expanded vibrotactile stimuli space to haptic cognitive & affective space by eliminating cognitively and affectively undistinguishable stimuli; and (3) finding information space from haptic cognitive & affective space by eliminating stimuli that are not intuitively matched with information. © 2013 ISSN 1881-803X.