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

摘要

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.