Investigating the semantic perceptual space of synthetic textures on an ultrasonic based haptic tablet

Maxime Dariosecq (1) , Patricia Plénacoste (2) , Florent Berthaut (1, 3) , Anis Kaci (4) , Frédéric Giraud (4)

1 CRIStAL - Centre de Recherche en Informatique, Signal et Automatique de Lille - UMR 9189
2 LIFL - Laboratoire d'Informatique Fondamentale de Lille
3 IRCICA - Institut de Recherche sur les Composants logiciels et matériels pour l'Information et la Communication Avancé - UAR 3380
4 L2EP - Laboratoire d’Électrotechnique et d’Électronique de Puissance - ULR 2697

This paper aims to investigate the semantic perceptual space of synthetic tactile textures rendered via an ultrasonic based haptic tablet and the parameters influencing this space. Through a closed card sorting task, 30 participants had to explore 32 tactile-only textures and describe each texture using adjectives. A factorial analysis of mixed data was conducted. Results suggest a 2 dimensional space with tactile textures belonging to a continuum of rough to smooth adjectives. Influence of waveform and amplitude is shown to play an important role in perceiving a texture as smooth or rough, and spatial period is a possible modulator of different degrees of roughness or smoothness. Finally, we discuss how these findings can be used by designers on tactile feedback devices.

Keywords: Haptic feedback; Tactile device; Ultrasonic vibrations; Perceptual space; Material perception; Texture rendering

Domains: Human-Computer Interaction [cs.HC]

Maxime Dariosecq, Patricia Plénacoste, Florent Berthaut, Anis Kaci, Frédéric Giraud. Investigating the semantic perceptual space of synthetic textures on an ultrasonic based haptic tablet. HUCAPP 2020, Feb 2020, Valletta, Malta. ⟨hal-02434298⟩