Humans efficiently estimate the grip force necessary to lift a variety of objects, including slippery ones. The regulation of grip force starts with the initial contact and takes into account the surface properties, such as friction. This estimation of the frictional strength has been shown to depend critically on cutaneous information. However, the physical and perceptual mechanism that provides such early tactile information remains elusive. In this study, we developed a friction-modulation apparatus to elucidate the effects of the frictional properties of objects during initial contact. We found a correlation between participants’ conscious perception of friction and radial strain patterns of skin deformation. The results provide insights into the tactile cues made available by contact mechanics to the sensorimotor regulation of grip, as well as to the conscious perception of the frictional properties of an object.
10th International Conference on Haptics - Perception, Devices, Control, and Applications (EuroHaptics), Imperial Coll London, London, ENGLAND, JUL 04-07, 2016International audienceCurrent touchscreen technology makes for intuitive human-computer interactions but often lacks haptic feedback offered by conventional input methods. Typing text on a virtual keyboard is arguably the task in which the absence of tactile cues imparts performance and comfort the most. Here we investigated the feasibility of modulating friction via ultrasonic vibration as a function of the pressing force to simulate a tactile feedback similar to a keystroke. Ultrasonic vibration is generally used to modulate the sliding friction which occurs when a finger moves laterally on a surface. We found that this method is also effective when the exploratory motion is normal to the surface. Psychophysical experiments show that a mechanical detent is unambiguously perceived in the case of signals starting with a high level of friction and ending to a low friction level. A weaker effect is experienced when friction is increasing with the pressure exerted by the finger, which suggests that the mechanism involved is a release of the skin stretch accumulated during the high-friction state
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