Touch between people is an integral part of human life. Touch is used to convey information, emotions, and other social cues. Still, everyday remote communication remains mainly auditive or audio-visual. The theme of this article, interpersonal haptic communication, refers to any communication system that supports mediation of touch between two or more persons. We first present a scoping review of the state of the art in interpersonal haptic communication, including physiological and psychological basis of touch, affective and social touch, and mediated social touch. We then discuss emerging research themes that shape the future of interpersonal haptic communication, identify research gaps and propose key research directions for each theme. Finally, societal impact and ethical aspects are discussed. 

Interpersonal Haptic Communication: Review and Directions for the Future

Generating localized haptic feedback over a spherical surface

Education 4.0 demands a flexible combination of digital literacy, critical thinking, and problem-solving in educational settings linked to real-world scenarios. Haptic technology incorporates the sense of touch into a visual simulator to enrich the user’s sensory experience, thus supporting a meaningful learning process. After developing several visuo-haptic simulators, our team identified serious difficulties and important challenges to achieve successful learning environments within the framework of Education 4.0. This paper presents the VIS-HAPT methodology for developing realistic visuo-haptic scenarios to promote the learning of science and physics concepts for engineering students. This methodology consists of four stages that integrate different aspects and processes leading to meaningful learning experiences for students. The different processes that must be carried out through the different stages, the difficulties to overcome and recommendations on how to face them are all described herein. The results are encouraging since a significant decrease (of approximately 40%) in the development and implementation times was obtained as compared with previous efforts. The quality of the visuo-haptic environments was also enhanced. Student perceptions of the benefits of using visuo-haptic simulators to enhance their understanding of physics concepts also improved after using the proposed methodology. The incorporation of haptic technologies in higher education settings will certainly foster better student performance in subsequent real environments related to Industry 4.0.

VIS-HAPT: A Methodology Proposal to Develop Visuo-Haptic Environments in Education 4.0

Adequate use of multimodal stimuli plays a crucial role in help forming the sense of presence within a virtual environment. While most of the presence research attempts to engage more sensory modalities to induce a higher sense of presence, this paper investigates the relevance of each sensory modality and different combinations on the subjective sense of presence using a specifically designed scenario of a passive experience. We chose a neutral test scenario of “waiting at a train station while a train is passing by” to avoid the potential influence of story narrative on mental presence and replicated realistic multimodal stimuli that are highly relevant to our test setting. All four stimuli -visual, auditory, vibration, and draught -with 16 possibilities of combinations were systematically evaluated with 24 participants. The evaluation was performed on one crucial aspect of presence –“realness” to reflect user presence in general. The perceived realism value was assessed using a scalometer. The findings of main effects indicate that the auditory stimuli had the most significant contribution in creating the sense of presence. The results of interaction effects suggest the impact of draught stimuli is significant in relation to other stimuli -visual and auditory. Also, the gender effects revealed that the sense of presence reported by female participants is influenced by more factors than merely adding more sensory modalities.

https://lib.jucs.org/article/68384/download/pdf/

Multimodality for Passive Experience: Effects of Visual, Auditory, Vibration and Draught Stimuli on Sense of Presence

The physical properties of an interaction surface can significantly alter the characteristics of a vibration signal during its transmission from the actuator to the point of contact. This distortion can integrate and attenuate the applied signal before it reaches the skin contact significantly altering the intended perception. Thus, efforts need to be made to identify and regulate vibration mediation throughout the entire device to achieve uniform global vibrotactile-feedback. Our research proposes a novel concept of 3D-printing Embedded Haptic Waveguides (EHWs) within the interaction surface to improve signal propagation. The EHWs are designed to lower impedance load, effectively creating multiple mediation channels to relay actuation throughout the device. To evaluate the efficiency of our EHW design we compare it to three commonly used off-the-shelf materials (Gorilla glass, Plexiglas, aluminum) and one unmodified 3D-printed ABS surface. Results indicate that the customized 3D-printed EHW surface was more efficient at signal propagation and created similar perceptual feedback throughout the entire surface for the applied signals. These findings suggest that the EHW design has the potential to enhance global-device actuation for surface-based interaction in mobile and handheld devices.

Embedded Haptic Waveguides to Improve Tactile Feedback : Designing a custom 3D-printed surface to enhance signal mediation

Propagating of haptic signals to the finger(s) location from actuators embedded within a mobile device depends on the acoustic impedance of the conductive environment. Parameters of constructive interference such as time-shift and magnitude also play a crucial role in creating effective haptic feedback at the point of contact. However, Propagation of standing waves along deformable surfaces, such as Gorilla glass, quickly attenuates vibration signals, drastically reducing the efficiency of perceivable haptic signals. In order to facilitate signal propagating parameters and create HD haptics, it is necessary to use materials that effectively transfer vibration signals within a mobile device. To minimize attenuation, a display overlay pouch sealed with liquid can be used. In this paper we demonstrate the ability to generate a virtual tactile exciter as the result of the interference maximum of two Tectonic actuators affixed to the display of a Microsoft Surface Go tablet as well as to the display overlay pouch sealed with liquid. For both the liquid mediator and glass surfaces we revealed high similarity in the trend of peak-to-peak values of interference maximum indicated by Excel’s LINEST function (0.9805). We also found that the interference maximum in the pouch sealed with liquid to be 19.06dBV greater than that of the tablet. The results can be used for creating HD haptics and applications.

/pdf/generating-virtual-tactile-exciter-for-hd-haptics-a-tectonic-37op1ph0lf.pdf

Generating Virtual Tactile Exciter for HD Haptics : A Tectonic Actuators’ Case Study

In an effort to find a way to more efficiently and accurately display localized high definition tactile information to the skin we studied the vibrotactile constructive wave interference properties of silicone gel. By placing two actuators at a given distance from each other and controlling the delay when each actuator is activated in relation to the other, we can achieve a point of constructive wave interference. The time when the interference occurs along with any loses due to attenuation depends on the material the vibration travels through. The goal is to find a compliant material that can be used as a reference to human tissue when designing feedback for assistive robots.

Gel-based Haptic Mediator for High-Definition Tactile Communication

To improve the perception of haptic feedback, materials and sense-modifier effects should be examined. Teflon, Nylon mesh, and Silicone overlays were tested in combination with lateral vibrations to study their impact on the tactile sense. A feelable point moving along a line was implemented through the use of a dynamically moving interference maximum generated via the offset actuation of four haptic exciters affixed to corners of a Gorilla Glass surface. This feedback was presented to eight participants in a series of randomized experiments. Both the Nylon mesh and Teflon covering revealed a statistically significant (p < 0.05) impact of improvement to the user performance in the task of dynamic haptic virtual straight lines localization. While Silicone covering, having three times greater friction than Gorilla Glass, has less or no impact on both decision time, the number of task repetitions, and error rate (p > 0.05). The lateral vibration modifier (60 Hz) can also successfully be used with an increase in performance by about twofold, at least that was demonstrated for both the Nylon mesh and Teflon covering.

/pdf/the-impact-of-different-overlay-materials-on-the-tactile-hn0qk2v8.pdf

The Impact of Different Overlay Materials on the Tactile Detection of Virtual Straight Lines

High-fidelity localized feedback has the potential of providing new and unique levels of interaction with a given device. Achieving this in a cost-effective reproducible manner has been a challenge in modern technology. Past experiments have shown that by using the principles of constructive wave interference introduced by time offsets it is possible to achieve a position of increased vibration displacement at any given location. As new interface form factors increasingly incorporate curved surfaces, we now show that these same techniques can successfully be applied and mechanically coupled with a universal actuation plate.

Haptic Actuation Plate for Multi-Layered In-Vehicle Control Panel

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