A Feasibility Study on Tactile Enhancement of Mid-Air Ultrasonic Stimulation by Wrist Vibration
摘要
This study seeks a method to improve the perceived intensity of a mid-air ultrasonic tactile stimulus based on the perceptual phenomenon of tactile enhancement. We present a brief vibrotactile stimulus to the wrist before stimulating the user’s palm using a mid-air ultrasonic stimulus. The two stimuli have the same frequency. This arrangement is similar to the typical situation in which tactile enhancement occurs, except that the stimulation locations are close but different and the following stimulus is of mid-air ultrasonic type. Our method is validated by a user study demonstrating the perceived intensity of a mid-air ultrasonic stimulus is increased up to 1.7 times. These findings offer a new research direction to amend the most critical problem of current mid-air ultrasonic haptic devices, the weak perceptual strength, using a common wearable.