Switching between objects improves precision in haptic perception of softness
Authors: Metzger, A. and Drewing, K.
Journal: Lecture Notes in Computer Science Including Subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics
Volume: 12272 LNCS
Pages: 69-77
eISSN: 1611-3349
ISSN: 0302-9743
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-58147-3_8
Abstract:Haptic perception involves active exploration usually consisting of repeated stereotypical movements. The choice of such exploratory movements and their parameters are tuned to achieve high perceptual precision. Information obtained from repeated exploratory movements (e.g. repeated indentations of an object to perceive its softness) is integrated but improvement of discrimination performance is limited by memory if the two objects are explored one after the other in order to compare them. In natural haptic exploration humans tend to switch between the objects multiple times when comparing them. Using the example of softness perception here we test the hypothesis that given the same amount of information, discrimination improves if memory demands are lower. In our experiment participants explored two softness stimuli by indenting each of the stimuli four times. They were allowed to switch between the stimuli after every single indentation (7 switches), after every second indentation (3 switches) or only once after four indentations (1 switch). We found better discrimination performance with seven switches as compared to one switch, indicating that humans naturally apply an exploratory strategy which might reduce memory demands and thus leads to improved performance.
https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/37184/
Source: Scopus
Switching Between Objects Improves Precision in Haptic Perception of Softness.
Authors: Metzger, A. and Drewing, K.
Conference: EuroHaptics 2020
Dates: 6-9 September 2020
Journal: (eds) Haptics: Science, Technology, Applications. EuroHaptics 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12272. Springer, Cham.
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-58147-3_8
Abstract:Haptic perception of objects’ softness plays an important role in the identification and interaction with objects. How softness is represented in the brain is yet not clear. Here we investigated whether there is a neutral point in the perceptual representation of haptically perceived softness relative to which the objects are represented as being “soft” or “hard”. We created a wide range of softness stimuli, varying from very hard (ceramic) to very soft foam with differently soft foam and silicone stimuli in between. Participants were assigned to one of three different stimulus set conditions: full set (18 stimuli), soft set (13 softest stimuli) or the hard set (13 hardest stimuli). They categorized each stimulus as “hard” or “soft” and we estimated the neutral point as the point of subjectively equal categorization as “hard” or “soft”. We found that neutral points were different from the middle stimulus of each set. Furthermore, during the course of the experiment neutral points rather moved away from the middle of the stimulus set than towards it. Our results indicate that there might be a neutral point in the representation of haptically perceived softness, however range effects may play a role.
https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/37184/
Source: Manual
Switching Between Objects Improves Precision in Haptic Perception of Softness.
Authors: Metzger, A. and Drewing, K.
Conference: EuroHaptics 2020: Haptics: Science, Technology, Applications
Pages: 69-77
Abstract:Haptic perception of objects’ softness plays an important role in the identification and interaction with objects. How softness is represented in the brain is yet not clear. Here we investigated whether there is a neutral point in the perceptual representation of haptically perceived softness relative to which the objects are represented as being “soft” or “hard”. We created a wide range of softness stimuli, varying from very hard (ceramic) to very soft foam with differently soft foam and silicone stimuli in between. Participants were assigned to one of three different stimulus set conditions: full set (18 stimuli), soft set (13 softest stimuli) or the hard set (13 hardest stimuli). They categorized each stimulus as “hard” or “soft” and we estimated the neutral point as the point of subjectively equal categorization as “hard” or “soft”. We found that neutral points were different from the middle stimulus of each set. Furthermore, during the course of the experiment neutral points rather moved away from the middle of the stimulus set than towards it. Our results indicate that there might be a neutral point in the representation of haptically perceived softness, however range effects may play a role.
https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/37184/
Source: BURO EPrints