Frequency of Switching Touching Mode Reflects Tactile Preference Judgment

Area of Science:

• Haptics and Human-Computer Interaction
• Psychophysics
• Robotics and AI

Background:

• Tactile perception significantly influences affective judgments of objects.
• Prior research focused on object surface properties, neglecting the role of active exploration strategies.
• Understanding hand motion dynamics during tactile exploration is crucial for preference evaluation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between explorative hand motion dynamics and tactile preference ratings.
• To apply recurrence plot techniques for analyzing temporal dynamics of hand movements during tactile exploration.
• To identify specific hand motion features that correlate with subjective tactile preferences.

Main Methods:

• Participants freely explored tactile stimuli and provided preference ratings.
• Recurrence plot techniques and recurrence quantification analysis were used to visualize and characterize temporal dynamics of finger velocity and force.
• Correlations were analyzed between preference ratings and both time-averaged features and recurrence features (e.g., TREND).

Main Results:

• Preference ratings correlated with temporal dynamics of hand motion, including recurrence features like TREND.
• TREND, representing repeated motion patterns, showed a significant correlation with preference.
• TREND differences may reflect the frequency of switching between different touching modes (e.g., stroking, pushing).

Conclusions:

• Tactile preference is linked to the repetitiveness of hand motions during exploration.
• Preferable objects elicit more repetitive hand movements, while less preferable objects involve varied touching modes.
• Recurrence plot analysis offers a promising method for extracting and understanding human tactile exploration strategies.