| Cross-Modality Matching of Loudness and Perceived Intensity of Whole-Body Vibrations | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 1-9 | |
| Sebastian Merchel; M. Ercan Altinsoy | |||
| In this study, two experiments were conducted to determine the point of
subjective intensity equality (PSE) of pure tones and sinusoidal whole-body
vibrations (WBV) at various frequencies (50 Hz, 100 Hz and 200 Hz). In these
experiments, sounds and vertical vibrations were simultaneously presented to
subjects using circumaural headphones and a flat hard seat. In total, 10
participants were subjected to tones with a fixed loudness level (40 phon, 60
phon, 80 phon and 100 phon). The participants were asked to match the intensity
of the vibration to the loudness of the tone, using the method of adjustment.
In the first experiment, the participants were subjected to a vibration and
tone with the same frequency. Alternatively, in the second experiment, the
frequency of the vibration was maintained at 50 Hz, while that of the tone was
varied.
The results revealed that a 20 phon increase in loudness level resulted in a 5-6 dB increase in matched acceleration level at loudness levels greater than 40 phon. This result was reproducible with small intra-individual variations; however, large inter-individual differences were observed. Keywords: Cross-Modality Matching; Whole-Body Vibration; Audiotactile Perception;
Intensity | |||
| Leaping across Modalities: Speed Regulation Messages in Audio and Tactile Domains | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 10-19 | |
| Kai Tuuri; Tuomas Eerola; Antti Pirhonen | |||
| This study examines three design bases for speed regulation messages by
testing their ability to function across modalities. Two of the design bases
utilise a method originally intended for sound design and the third uses a
method meant for tactile feedback. According to the experimental results, all
designs communicate the intended meanings similarly in audio and tactile
domains. It was also found that melodic (frequency changes) and rhythmic
(segmentation) features of stimuli function differently for each type of
message. Keywords: audio; tactile; crossmodal interactions; crossmodal design | |||
| The Effect of Spatial Disparity on the Integration of Auditory and Tactile Information | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 20-25 | |
| M. Ercan Altinsoy | |||
| Spatial origin is an important cue for humans to determine whether auditory
and tactile signals originate from the same event/object or not. This paper
addresses spatial factors involved in the integration of auditory and tactile
information. Perceptual threshold values for auditory-tactile spatial origin
disparity were measured using tactile information and sound such as those
generated by touching (scraping) an abrasive paper. The results of the study
show that the minimum angle subjects need to notice that the locations of the
auditory and tactile events do not coincide is 5.3°. Simultaneously
presented tactile stimulation enlarges the auditory localization blur in the
horizontal plane. The results show that the perceived location of auditory
stimuli is influenced by tactile stimulation. Keywords: Audiotactile interaction; multimodal integration; localization blur; spatial
origin | |||
| Parametric Study of Virtual Curvature Recognition: Discrimination Thresholds for Haptic and Visual Sensory Information | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 26-36 | |
| W. Jong Yoon; Joel C. Perry; Blake Hannaford | |||
| The senses of vision and touch are vital modalities used in the
discrimination of objects. In this research effort, a haptic device is used to
determine thresholds of curvature discrimination in visual-haptic experiments.
Discrimination thresholds are found for each sense independently as well as for
combinations of these with and without the presence of conflicting information.
Results indicate that on average, the visual sense is about three times more
sensitive than the haptic sense in discriminating curvature in virtual
environments. It is also noticed that subjects seem to rely more heavily on the
sense that contains the most informative cues rather than on any one particular
sense, in agreement with the sensory integration model proposed by Ernst and
Banks. The authors believe that the resulting thresholds may serve as relative
comparisons between perceptual performance of the sensory modalities of vision
and haptics in virtual environment. Keywords: Curvature Recognition; Discrimination Thresholds; Haptic Perception; Sensory
Discrepancy | |||
| Cross-Modal Frequency Matching: Sound and Whole-Body Vibration | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 37-45 | |
| M. Ercan Altinsoy; Sebastian Merchel | |||
| Interest in human responses to whole-body vibration has grown, particularly
due to the increasing usage of vehicles, e.g. cars, trucks, and helicopters
etc. Another reason for growing interest in recent years is the importance of
the vibrations generated by the performance of music for multimedia
reproduction systems. There is a strong relationship between the frequency of
the auditory stimulus and the frequency of the tactile stimulus, which simply
results from the physical processes that generate the stimuli. The recordings
in different vehicles or in different concert situations show that the
whole-body vibration signal is like a low-pass filtered audio signal. The
spectral contents, particularly low frequencies, are matched with each other.
This correlation plays an important role in our integration mechanism of
auditory and tactile information and in the perception of an immersive
multimodal event.
In this study, psychophysical experiments were conducted to investigate, if subjects are able to match the frequencies of two different sensory modalities with each other. In this experiment, sinusoidal sound and vibration signals were used. The auditory stimuli were presented to the subjects via headphones and the tactile stimuli were presented through a vibration seat. The task of the subject was to match the frequency of the whole-body vibration to the frequency of the auditory stimuli. The results show that the subjects are able to match the frequency of both modalities with some tolerances. Keywords: Whole-body vibration; frequency; cross-modal-matching; audiotactile
perception | |||
| Audioworld: A Spatial Audio Tool for Acoustic and Cognitive Learning | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 46-54 | |
| André Melzer; Martin Christof Kindsmüller; Michael Herczeg | |||
| The present paper introduces Audioworld, a novel game-like application for
goal-oriented computer-supported learning (CSL). In Audioworld, participants
localize sound emitting objects depending on their spatial position. Audioworld
serves as a flexible low cost test bed for a broad range of human cognitive
functions. This comprises the systematic training of spatial navigation and
localization skills, but also of verbal skills and phonetic knowledge known to
be essential in grammar literacy, for example. The general applicability of
Audioworld was confirmed in a pilot study: users rated the overall application
concept novel, entertaining, and rewarding. Keywords: Audio-based localization; computer-supported learning; human cognitive
functions; spatial navigation | |||
| Exploring Interactive Systems Using Peripheral Sounds | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 55-64 | |
| Saskia Bakker; Elise van den Hoven; Berry Eggen | |||
| Our everyday interaction in and with the physical world, has facilitated the
development of auditory perception skills that enable us to selectively place
one auditory channel in the center of our attention and simultaneously monitor
others in the periphery. We search for ways to leverage these auditory
perception skills in interactive systems. In this paper, we present three
working demonstrators that use sound to subtly convey information to users in
an open office. To qualitatively evaluate these demonstrators, each of them has
been implemented in an office for three weeks. We have seen that such a period
of time, sounds can start shifting from the center to the periphery of the
attention. Furthermore, we found several issues to be addressed when designing
such systems, which can inform future work in this area. Keywords: Calm Technology; Periphery; Attention; Sound design; Interaction design | |||
| Basic Exploration of Narration and Performativity for Sounding Interactive Commodities | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 65-74 | |
| Stefano Delle Monache; Daniel Hug; Cumhur Erkut | |||
| We present an exploration in sonic interaction design, aimed at integrating
the power of narrative sound design with the sonic aesthetics of a
physics-based sound synthesis. The emerging process is based on interpretation,
and can represent a novel tool in the education of the future generation of
interaction designers. In addition, an audio-tactile paradigm, that exploits
the potential of the physics-based approach, is introduced. Keywords: Sonic Interaction Design; Aesthetics; Physics-based Synthesis; Methodology;
Narrative Sound Design | |||
| Tactile Web Browsing for Blind Users | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 75-84 | |
| Ravi Kuber; Wai Yu; M. Sile O'Modhrain | |||
| Recent developments in tactile technologies have made them an attractive
choice to improve access to non-visual interfaces. This paper describes the
design and evaluation of an extension to an existing browser, which enables
blind individuals to explore web pages using tactile feedback. Pins are
presented via a tactile mouse to communicate the presence of graphical
interface objects. Findings from an evaluation have revealed that fifteen
participants were able to learn the tactile HTML mappings developed, and were
able to perform a range of web-based tasks in a less constrained manner than
using a screen reader alone. The mappings presented in this paper, can be used
by web developers with limited experience of tactile design, to widen access to
their sites. Keywords: Blind; human factors; tactile; web browsing | |||
| Reducing Reversal Errors in Localizing the Source of Sound in Virtual Environment without Head Tracking | | BIBA | Full-Text | 85-96 | |
| Vladimir Ortega-González; Samir Garbaya; Frédéric Merienne | |||
| This paper presents a study about the effect of using additional audio cueing and Head-Related Transfer Function (HRTF) on human performance in sound source localization task without using head movement. The existing techniques of sound spatialization generate reversal errors. We intend to reduce these errors by introducing sensory cues based on sound effects. We conducted and experimental study to evaluate the impact of additional cues in sound source localization task. The results showed the benefit of combining the additional cues and HRTF in terms of the localization accuracy and the reduction of reversal errors. This technique allows significant reduction of reversal errors compared to the use of the HRTF separately. For instance, this technique could be used to improve audio spatial alerting, spatial tracking and target detection in simulation applications when head movement is not included. | |||
| Conflicting Audio-haptic Feedback in Physically Based Simulation of Walking Sounds | | BIBA | Full-Text | 97-106 | |
| Luca Turchet; Stefania Serafin; Smilen Dimitrov; Rolf Nordahl | |||
| We describe an audio-haptic experiment conducted using a system which simulates in real-time the auditory and haptic sensation of walking on different surfaces. The system is based on physical models, that drive both the haptic and audio synthesizers, and a pair of shoes enhanced with sensors and actuators. Such experiment was run to examine the ability of subjects to recognize the different surfaces with both coherent and incoherent audio-haptic stimuli. Results show that in this kind of tasks the auditory modality is dominant on the haptic one. | |||
| The Influence of Angle Size in Navigation Applications Using Pointing Gestures | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 107-116 | |
| Charlotte Magnusson; Kirsten Rassmus-Gröhn; Delphine Szymczak | |||
| One factor which can be expected to influence performance in applications
where the user points a device in some direction to obtain information is the
angle interval in which the user gets feedback. The present study was performed
in order to get a better understanding of the influence of this angle interval
on navigation performance, gestures and strategies in a more realistic outdoor
setting. Results indicate that users are able to handle quite a wide range of
angle intervals, although there are differences between narrow and wide
intervals. We observe different gestures and strategies used by the users and
provide some recommendations on suitable angle intervals. Finally, our
observations support the notion that using this type of pointing gesture for
navigation is intuitive and easy to use. Keywords: Non-visual; pointing; gesture; audio; mobile; location based | |||
| Audio-tactile Display of Ground Properties Using Interactive Shoes | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 117-128 | |
| Stefano Papetti; Federico Fontana; Marco Civolani; Amir Berrezag; Vincent Hayward | |||
| We describe an audio-tactile stimulation system that can be worn and that is
capable of providing the sensation of walking over grounds of different type.
The system includes miniature loudspeakers and broadband vibrotactile
transducers embedded in the soles. The system is particularly effective at
suggesting grounds that have granular or crumpling properties. By offering a
broad spectrum of floor augmentations with moderate technological requirements,
the proposed prototype represents a solution that can be easily replicated in
the research laboratory. This paper documents the design and features of the
diverse components that characterize the prototype in detail, as well as its
current limits. Keywords: Interactive shoes; foot-based interfaces | |||
| Efficient Acquisition of Force Data in Interactive Shoe Designs | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 129-138 | |
| Marco Civolani; Federico Fontana; Stefano Papetti | |||
| A four-channel sensing system is proposed for the capture of force data from
the feet during walking tasks. Developed for an instrumented shoe design
prototype, the system solves general issues of latency of the response,
accuracy of the data, and robustness of the transmission of digital signals to
the host computer. Such issues are often left partially unanswered by solutions
for which compactness, accessibility and cost are taken into primary
consideration. By adopting widely used force sensing (Interlink) and
analog-to-digital conversion and pre-processing (Arduino) components, the
proposed system is expected to raise interest among interaction designers of
interfaces, in which the reliable and sufficiently broadband acquisition of
force signals is desired. Keywords: Force sensing; closed-loop interfaces | |||
| A Comparison of Two Wearable Tactile Interfaces with a Complementary Display in Two Orientations | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 139-148 | |
| Mayuree Srikulwong; Eamonn O'Neill | |||
| Research has shown that two popular forms of wearable tactile displays, a
back array and a waist belt, can aid pedestrian navigation by indicating
direction. Each type has its proponents and each has been reported as
successful in experimental trials, however, no direct experimental comparisons
of the two approaches have been reported. We have therefore conducted a series
of experiments directly comparing them on a range of measures. In this paper,
we present results from a study in which we used a directional line drawing
task to compare user performance with these two popular forms of wearable
tactile display. We also investigated whether user performance was affected by
a match between the plane of the tactile interface and the plane in which the
users drew the perceived directions. Finally, we investigated the effect of
adding a complementary visual display. The touch screen display on which
participants drew the perceived directions presented either a blank display or
a visual display of a map indicating eight directions from a central
roundabout, corresponding to the eight directions indicated by the tactile
stimuli. We found that participants performed significantly faster and more
accurately with the belt than with the array whether they had a vertical screen
or a horizontal screen. We found no difference in performance with the map
display compared to the blank display. Keywords: Evaluation/methodology; haptic i/o; user interfaces; wearable computers;
pedestrian navigation | |||
| Virtual Sequencing with a Tactile Feedback Device | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 149-159 | |
| Victor Zappi; Marco Gaudina; Andrea Brogni; Darwin Caldwell | |||
| Since the beginning of Virtual Reality many artistic applications were
developed, showing how this technology could be exploited not only from a
technical point of view, but also in the field of feelings and emotions.
Nowadays music is one of the most interesting field of application for Virtual
Reality, and many environments provide the user with means to express
her/himself; our work follows this direction, aiming at developing a set of
multimodal musical interfaces. In this paper we present a first simple virtual
sequencer combined with a low cost tactile feedback device: some preliminary
experiments were done to analyze how skilled musicians approach this unusual
way of making music. Keywords: Virtual Instrument; OSC-MIDI Controller; Tactile Feedback | |||
| The LapSlapper -- Feel the Beat | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 160-168 | |
| Mads Stenhoj Andresen; Morten Bach; Kristian Ross Kristensen | |||
| The LapSlapper is an inexpensive and low-technology percussive instrument
with a digital interface. In a tactile and embodied manner it allows enhanced
control and promotes expressive creativity when operating with percussive
elements in digital environments. By using piezo-microphones, mounted on a pair
of gloves and connected with a stereo signal to a runtime-version of a Max/MSP
patch, intuitive haptic properties are achieved with simple means. The
LapSlapper improves the physical feeling of playing digital rhythm instruments
but the concept holds furthermore the potential to promote exploration and
innovation of new, digitally founded rhythmical structures and aesthetics. Keywords: Music; instrument; MIDI; trigger; percussion; drums; glove; embodied;
intuitive; mobility; tactile expression; haptic interface | |||
| Product Design Review Application Based on a Vision-Sound-Haptic Interface | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 169-178 | |
| Francesco Ferrise; Monica Bordegoni; Joseba Lizaranzu | |||
| Most of the activities concerning the design review of new products based on
Virtual Reality are conducted from a visual point of view, thus limiting the
realism of the reviewing activities. Adding the sense of touch and the sense of
hearing to traditional virtual prototypes, may help in making the interaction
with the prototype more natural, realistic and similar to the interaction with
real prototypes. Consequently, this would also contribute in making design
review phases more effective, accurate and reliable. In this paper we describe
an application for product design review where haptic, sound and vision
channels have been used to simulate the interaction with a household appliance. Keywords: Multimodal Interaction; Interaction Design; Virtual Prototyping; Product
Design Review | |||
| The Phantom versus the Falcon: Force Feedback Magnitude Effects on User's Performance during Target Acquisition | | BIBA | Full-Text | 179-188 | |
| Lode Vanacken; Joan De Boeck; Karin Coninx | |||
| Applying force feedback applications in a therapy environment allows the patient to practice in a more independent manner, with less intervention of the therapist. Currently however, high-end devices such as the Phantom or the HapticMaster are far too expensive to provide a device per patient. Recently Novint launched a low-cost haptic device for the gaming market: the Falcon. In this paper we report on an experiment that we conducted in order to compare the Falcon and the Phantom, based on a Fitts' law targeting task. We deduced physical parameters such as inertia and damping, which were found to be different for the devices. Although from a velocity analysis these differences can be clearly seen, it turns out that the influence of different forces does not show significant differences when taking completion time and error rate into account. From a subjective experiment, we can learn that users allow the Falcon to produce slightly higher forces than the Phantom before forces are judged as too strong. | |||
| Building a Framework for Communication of Emotional State through Interaction with Haptic Devices | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 189-196 | |
| Eric W. Cooper; Victor V. Kryssanov; Hitoshi Ogawa | |||
| Brief and high speed semantic communication, such as through texting and
e-mail, leaves users without the ability to fully comprehend emotional content
and vulnerable to emotional misunderstanding. The need to communicate emotional
states, or to elicit sympathetic response in the receiver is evident in emotive
icons and other relatively new applications of existing modes of communication.
Haptic interfaces offer users a non-verbal way to communicate remotely, opening
the door to a richer vocabulary and greater accessibility in emotive and
affective communication. The studies described here investigate a possible
framework for communication through haptic interface devices using existing
models of emotional state. The semantic studies offer a look at users'
naïve understanding of the emotive content of haptic sensations. Further
experiments with haptic devices show that while communication through these
modes can be implemented, the range of possible responses depends as much on
the type of interaction used as on the users' understanding of emotive content. Keywords: haptic communication; emotional communication; affective engineering | |||
| A Trajectory-Based Approach for Device Independent Gesture Recognition in Multimodal User Interfaces | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 197-206 | |
| Mathias Wilhelm; Dirk Roscher; Marco Blumendorf; Sahin Albayrak | |||
| With the rise of technology in all areas of life new interaction techniques
are required. With gestures and voice being the most natural ways to interact,
it is a goal to also support this in human-computer interaction. In this paper,
we introduce our approach to multimodal interaction in smart home environments
and illustrate how device independent gesture recognition can be of great
support in this area. We describe a trajectory-based approach that is applied
to support device independent dynamic hand gesture recognition from vision
systems, accelerometers or pen devices. The recorded data from the different
devices is transformed to a common basis (2D-space) and the feature extraction
and recognition is done on this basis. In a comprehensive case study we show
the feasibility of the recognition and the integration with a multimodal and
adaptive home operating system. Keywords: gesture recognition; device independence; trajectory matching; generalized
Procrustes analysis; multimodality | |||