Affective Vibrotactile Stimuli: Relation between Vibrotactile Parameters and Affective Responses

Abstract

Affective communication in the interaction with touch panel displays could be improved by vibrotactile feedback. Hence, we address the relation between vibrotactile stimuli and affective responses. Specifically, we aim to determine the response to comprehensive vibrotactile stimulus parameters, i.e., waveform, amplitude, envelope frequency, and rhythm, by rating 48 types of amplitude-modulated vibrotactile stimuli according to five affective responses: arousal, comfort, preference, familiarity, and dominance. By determining the effects of each parameter, we found that amplitude and envelope frequency were the most effective parameters triggering affective responses. Amplitude influenced arousal and dominance positively, and comfort, preference, and familiarity negatively. Envelope frequency influenced arousal and dominance negatively. In contrast, waveform and rhythm showed lower effectiveness, which contradicted expected outcomes. Likewise, we verified that affective responses mainly include two dimensions, namely, arousal (and dominance) and comfort (or valence). Overall, the results from this study serve as initial guidelines for designing electronic devices with affective vibrotactile stimuli.