An emerging issue in movement neurosciences is whether haptic feedback influences the nature of the information supporting a simulated grasping response (i.e., pantomime-grasping). In particular, recent work by our group contrasted pantomime-grasping responses performed with (i.e., PH+ trials) and without (i.e., PH- trials) terminal haptic feedback in separate blocks of trials. Results showed t...

Humans can learn to manipulate objects with complex dynamics, including nonrigid objects with internal degrees of freedom. The first aim of this study was to assess the contribution of haptic feedback when learning to manipulate a nonrigid object. The second aim was to evaluate how learning without haptic feedback influences subsequent learning with haptic feedback and vice versa. The task invo...

A low-cost approach towards non-haptic medical training By: Julian Thomas Ewers-Peters Supervisor: Prof. Marie Redmond As Virtual Reality Training Systems (VRTS) become more advanced, they are increasingly being regarded as valuable facilities for the acquisition of dextrous clinical skills among medical doctors and anesthetists. This work explores the possibilities that are provided by introdu...

We introduce a new technique of haptic guidance for item selection in 3D menus for VR applications called “haptic walls”. It consists in haptically rendering a solid funnel to guide the pointer towards a target located in the angle. We designed a 3D haptic menu using this approach: a thin polyhedral shape with the items at the corners. The “haptic walls” are experimented with 2 different shapes...

Lateral force fields (LFFs) have been used before to generate haptic textures [3]. We propose that LFFs can be used to study haptic shape perception. We present preliminary results of an experiment in which human subjects interact with realistic LFFs. The LFFs encode shape information in the magnitude of unidimensional force vectors. Subjects explore the LFFs and classify them into haptic categ...

This paper presents a haptic virtual reality tool developed to enhance the accessibility for the visually impaired. The proposed approach focuses on the development of a highly interactive haptic virtual reality system that allows visually impaired, to study and interact with various virtual objects in specially designed virtual environments. The system is based on the use of the CyberGraspTM a...

Multimodal interfaces have been shown to increase user performance for a variety of tasks. We have been investigating the synergistic benefits of haptic scientific visualization using an integrated, semi-immersive virtual environment. The Visual Haptic Workbench provides multimodal interaction; immersion is enhanced by head and hand tracking, haptic feedback, and additional audio cues. We prese...

This paper presents a physically based method to deal with haptic feedback of manipulated deformable virtual objects in contact with rigid or deformable environment. The haptic rendering algorithm is based on the Signorini’s formulation of the contact as proposed in theoretical mechanics. Since haptic interaction requires high refresh rates, a multi-threaded methodology, sharing configuration v...

We develop a conceptual framework regarding the perceptual transfer of haptic or touch-related characteristics from product containers to judgments of the products themselves. Thus, the firmness of a cup in which water is served may affect consumers’ judgments of the water itself. This framework predicts that not all consumers are equally affected by such nondiagnostic haptic cues. Results from...

Haptic applications are difficult to debug due to their high update rate and many factors influencing their execution. In this paper, we describe a practical visual debugger for single-point-of-contact haptic devices of impedance-type. The debugger can easily be incorporated into the running haptic application. The visualization shows the position trajectory with timing information and associat...