The increasing ubiquity of haptic displays (e.g., smart phones and tablets) necessitates a better understanding of the perceptual capabilities of the human haptic system. Haptic displays will soon be capable of locally deforming to create simple 3D shapes. This study investigated the sensitivity of our haptic system to a fundamental component of shapes: edges. A novel set of eight high quality shape stimuli with test edges that varied in sharpness were fabricated in a 3D printer. In a two alternative, forced choice task, blindfolded participants were presented with two of these shapes side by side (one the reference, the other selected randomly from the remaining set of seven) and after actively exploring the test edge of each shape with the tip of their index finger, reported which shape had the sharper edge. We used a model selection approach to fit optimal psychometric functions to performance data, and from these obtained just noticeable differences and Weber fractions. In Experiment 1, participants performed the task with four different references. With sharpness defined as the angle at which one surface meets the horizontal plane, the four JNDs closely followed Weber’s Law, giving a Weber fraction of 0.11. Comparisons to previously reported Weber fractions from other haptic manipulations (e.g. amplitude of vibration) suggests we are sufficiently sensitive to changes in edge sharpness for this to be of potential utility in the design of future haptic displays. In Experiment 2, two groups of participants performed the task with a single reference but different exploration strategies; one was limited to a single touch, the other unconstrained and free to explore as they wished. As predicted, the JND in the free exploration condition was lower than that in the single touch condition, indicating exploration strategy affects sensitivity to edge sharpness.
Unlike legacy video-conferencing, which connects two nodes each equipped with a camera, recent systems facilitating for video-mediated group communication deal simultaneously with a large number of video streams. This highlights the need for orchestration, i.e. the intelligent selection of the most adequate camera views to be displayed on each screen. In this paper we present the initial results of a study that evaluates the effects of orchestration on communication within a specific context; that of two remote groups playing a collaborative board game. The results of the experiment indicate that automatic orchestration can provide improvements similar to the ones achieved when live video mixing is performed by human editors.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.