Sensory Perception & Interaction, Research Group

Haptic icons are brief, meaningful tactile or force stimuli designed
to support the communication of information through the
often-underutilized haptic modality. Challenges to producing large,
reusable sets of haptic icons include technological constraints and
the need for broadly-applicable and validated design heuristics to
guide the process. The largest set of haptic stimuli to date was produced
through systematic use of heuristics for monotone rhythms.
We hypothesized that further extending signal expressivity would
continue to enhance icon learnability. Here, we introduce melody
into the design of rhythmic stimuli as a means of increasing expressiveness
while retaining the principle of systematic design, as
guided by music theory. Haptic melodies are evaluated for their perceptual
distinctiveness; experimental results from grouping tasks
indicate that rhythm dominates user categorization of melodies,
with frequency and amplitude potentially left available as new dimensions
for the designer to control within-group variation.