A study of the modification of the speed and size of the cursor for simulating pseudo-haptic bumps and holes

ABSTRACT

In previous work on so-called pseudo-haptic textures, we investigated the possibility of simulating sensations of texture without haptic devices by using the sole manipulation of the speed of a mouse cursor (a technique called speed technique). In this paper, we describe another technique (called Size technique) to enhance the speed technique and simulate texture sensations by varying the size of the cursor according to the local height of the texture displayed on the computer screen. With the size technique, the user would see an increase (decrease) in cursor size corresponding to a positive (negative) slope of the texture. We have conducted a series of experiments to study and compare the use of both the size and speed technique for simulating simple shapes like bumps and holes. In Experiment 1, our results showed that participants could successfully identify bumps and holes using the size technique alone. Performances obtained with the size technique reached a similar level of accuracy as found previously with the speed technique alone. In Experiment 2, we determined a point of subjective equality between bumps simulated by each technique separately, which suggests that the two techniques provide information that can be perceptually equivalent. In Experiment 3, using paradoxical situations of conflict between the two techniques, we have found that participants' answers were more influenced by the size technique, suggesting a dominance of the size over the speed technique. Furthermore, we have found a mutual reinforcement of the techniques, i.e., when the two techniques were consistently combined, the participants were more efficient in identifying the simulated shapes. In Experiment 4, we further observed the complex interactions between the information associated with the two techniques in the perception and in the decision process related to the accurate identification of bumps and holes. Taken together, our results promote the use of both techniques for the low-cost simulation of texture sensations in applications, such as videogames, internet, and graphical user interfaces.

REFERENCES

• 1: Avanzini, F., Serafin, S., and Rocchesso, D. 2005. Interactive simulation of rigid body interaction with friction-induced sound generation, IEEE Trans. Speech Audio Processing, 13, 5.2, 1073--1081.
• 2: Basdogan, C., Ho, C. H., and Srinivasan, M. A. 1997. A ray-based haptic rendering technique for displaying shape and texture of 3D objects in virtual environments. In Proceedings of ASME Dynamic Systems and Control Division, DSC-Vol. 61. 77--84.
• 3: Benjamin B. Bederson, Fisheye menus, Proceedings of the 13th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology, p.217-225, November 06-08, 2000, San Diego, California, United States [doi>10.1145/354401.354782]
• 4: Boring, E. G. 1940. Size constancy and Emmert's Law. Amer. J. Psych. 53, 2, 293--295.
• 5: Grigore C. Burdea, Force and touch feedback for virtual reality, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, NY, 1996
• 6: Anatole Lecuyer , Jean-Marie Burkhardt, Influence of Color/Display Ratio on the Perception of Mass of Manipulated Objects in Virtual Environments, Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE Conference 2005 on Virtual Reality, p.19-25, 318, March 12-16, 2005 [doi>10.1109/VR.2005.49]
• 7: Emmert, E. 1881. Grössenverhältnisse der Nachbilder. Klin. Monatsbl. Augenheilk. 19, 443--450.
• 8: Erkelens, C. J. and Regan, D. 1986. Human ocular vergence movements induced by changing size and disparity. J. Physiol. 379, 145--169.
• 9: Ernst, M. O. and Banks, M. S. 2002. Humans integrate visual and haptic information in a statistically optimal fashion. Nature 415, 429-433.
• 10: Gescheider, G. A. 1985. Psychophysics Method, Theory, and Application. Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc. Mahwah, New Jersey.
• 11: Haption. 2005. VIRTUOSE API V2.0 Programming Manual. www.haption.com
• 12: Hatwell, Y., Streri, A., and Gentaz, E. 2003. Touching for Knowing. Benjamins, Philadelphia, PA.
• 13: Hershenson, M. 1999. Visual Space Perception. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
• 14: Yasushi Ikei , Kazufumi Wakamatsu , Shuichi Fukuda, Vibratory Tactile Display of Image-Based Textures, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, v.17 n.6, p.53-61, November 1997 [doi>10.1109/38.626970]
• 15: Lynette A. Jones , Michal Berris, The Psychophysics of Temperature Perception and Thermal-Interface Design, Proceedings of the 10th Symposium on Haptic Interfaces for Virtual Environment and Teleoperator Systems, p.137, March 24-25, 2002
• 16: Lécuyer, A., Coquillart, S., Kheddar, A., Richard, P., and Coiffet, P. 2000. Pseudo-haptic feedback: Can isometric input devices simulate force feedback? In Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Virtual Reality. 239--246.
• 17: Anatole Lécuyer , Jean-Marie Burkhardt , Sabine Coquillart , Philippe Coiffet, "Boundary of Illusion: " An Experiment of Sensory Integration with a Pseudo-Haptic System, Proceedings of the Virtual Reality 2001 Conference (VR'01), p.115, March 13-17, 2001
• 18: Anatole Lécuyer , Jean-Marie Burkhardt , Laurent Etienne, Feeling bumps and holes without a haptic interface: the perception of pseudo-haptic textures, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.239-246, April 24-29, 2004, Vienna, Austria [doi>10.1145/985692.985723]
• 19: Lederman, S. J. and Abbott, S. G. 1981. Texture perception: Studies of intersensory organisation using a discrepancy paradigm, and visual versus tactual psychophysics. J. Exp. Psychol. Human Perception Perform. 7, 4, 902--915.
• 20: Lippincott-Williams and Wilkins. 2005. Peripheral Nerve Blocks on DVD: Upper Limbs. ISBN: 0-7817-4337-0, http://www.lww.com.
• 21: Regan L. Mandryk , Malcolm E. Rodgers , Kori M. Inkpen, Sticky widgets: pseudo-haptic widget enhancements for multi-monitor displays, CHI '05 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems, April 02-07, 2005, Portland, OR, USA [doi>10.1145/1056808.1056981]
• 22: Margaret Diane Rezvan R. Minsky, Computational haptics: the sandpaper system for synthesizing texture for a force-feedback display, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 1996
• 23: Nakamizo, S. and Imamura, M. 2004. Verification of Emmert's Law in Actual and Virtual Environments. J. Physiol. Anthropol. Appl. Human Sci. 23, 325--329.
• 24: Paljic, A., Burkhardt, J. M., and Coquillart, S. 2004. Evaluation of pseudo-haptic feedback for simulating torque: A comparison between isometric and elastic input devices. In Proceedings of International Symposium on Haptic Interfaces for Virtual Environment and Teleoperator Systems. 216--223.
• 25: Robles-De-La-Torre, G. and Hayward, V. 2001. Force can overcome object geometry in the perception of shape through active touch. Nature 412, 445--448.
• 26: Rodgers, M. 2005. Smart Sticky Widgets: A Pseudo-Haptic Approach for Multi-Monitor Display, PhD Thesis, Dalhousie University (Aug. 16).
• 27: Shimojo, M., Shinoara, M., and Fukui, Y. 1999. Human shape recognition performance for 3D tactile display. IEEE Trans. Systems Man Cybern. A 29, 6, 637--644.
• 28: Ir. Mfa Koert van Mensvoort, What you see is what you feel: exploiting the dominance of the visual over the haptic domain to simulate force-feedback with cursor displacements, Proceedings of the 4th conference on Designing interactive systems: processes, practices, methods, and techniques, June 25-28, 2002, London, England [doi>10.1145/778712.778761]
• 29: Watanabe, K. and Yasumura, M. 2003. Realizable user interface: The information realization by using cursor. In Proceedings of Human Interface Symposium. 541--544.
• 30: Young, F. A. 1951. Concerning Emmert's Law. Amer. J. Psychol. 64, 127--128.

INDEX TERMS

Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.1 MODELS AND PRINCIPLES
      H.1.2 User/Machine Systems
          Subjects: Human factors; Human information processing
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)
          Subjects: Evaluation/methodology; Haptic I/O; User-centered design

General Terms:
Design, Experimentation, Human Factors, Performance

Keywords:
Pseudo-haptic, bump, control/display ratio, cursor, hole, size, speed, texture