Relationship between Similarity of Haptic Texture and Touch Movement

Abstract

Human appears to change their movements of touch, such as an applied force to an object and a velocity of the hand tracing the object surface, based on a type of material of the object. The investigation of this difference in touch movement can make the haptic discrimination by robotic sensor systems more effective. In this study, we evaluated the relationship between similarity of haptic texture of 7 different materials and movement of finger of participants during tracing the materials’ surface. We focused on the applied force and the velocity of fingertip as a touch movement. The result indicated that the averaged applied force was corresponding with the similarity of haptic textures.