Constraining haptic exploration with sensors and gloves hardly changes the multidimensional structure of softness perception

摘要

Humans typically interact with the environment using bare hands. However, sometimes this is not possible or not preferred, e.g., when wearing protective gloves for work or sensor gloves in mixed/augmented reality (AR). Also, studying softness is highly important since it makes use of tactile and proprioceptive cues and it might be highly sensitive to restrictions. Here we tested how corresponding haptic constraints affect perceived softness. Participants manually explored and rated 10 materials on 15 sensory adjectives under four constraint conditions: bare hand, open-fingered glove, open-fingered glove with rigid sensors, and full glove. The materials represented extreme values on different softness dimensions; the adjectives were chosen to assess these dimensions. Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Procrustes distances, and correlation analyses showed that across constraint conditions, softness perception is overall highly similar. However, when we inspected responses on a more detailed level, per material-adjective combination, we observed that the full glove condition differed from the others especially for judgments on surface softness. Overall, the results suggest that sensor gloves hardly change the perception of different dimensions of softness if fingertips are left bare.