TY - JOUR
T1 - The Effect of Variability in Stiffness on Perception and Grip Force Adjustment
AU - Kossowsky, Hanna
AU - Farajian, Mor
AU - Milstein, Amit
AU - Nisky, Ilana
N1 - Funding Information:
Manuscript received June 4, 2020; revised November 8, 2020; accepted January 8, 2021. Date of publication January 15, 2021; date of current version September 16, 2021. This work was supported by the BSF (Grant no. 2016850), the NSF (Grant no. 1632259), the ISF (Grant 823/15), the Ministry of Science and Technology (Israel-Italy Virtual Lab on “Artificial Somatosen-sation for Humans and Humanoids”), and by the Helmsley Charitable Trust through the ABC Robotics Initiative of Ben-Gurion University of Negev. Mor Farajian and Hanna Kossowsky are supported by the Tzin, and the Lachish and Ariane de Rothschild fellowships, respectively. H. Kossowsky and M. Farajian contributed equally to this paper. Recommended for acceptance by Jessica Hartcher. (Corresponding author: Ilana Nisky.) The authors are with the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Zlo-towski Center for Neurosience, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel (e-mail: hannako@bgu.ac.il; farajian@bgu.ac.il; amitmil@bgu.ac.il; nisky@bgu.ac.il). Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TOH.2021.3052136
Publisher Copyright:
© 2008-2011 IEEE.
PY - 2021/7/1
Y1 - 2021/7/1
N2 - Haptic information can be used to create our perception of the stiffness of objects and to regulate grip force. Introducing noise into sensory inputs can create uncertainty, yet a method of creating haptic uncertainty without distorting the haptic information has yet to be discovered. Toward this end, in this article, we investigated the effect of varying haptic information between consecutive interactions with an elastic force field on stiffness perception and grip force control. In a stiffness discrimination task, participants interacted with force fields multiple times. Low, medium, and high variability levels were created by drawing the stiffness level applied in each consecutive interaction within a trial from normal distributions. Perceptual haptic uncertainty was created only by the medium variability level. Moreover, all the variability levels affected the grip force control: the modulation of the grip force with the load force decreased with repeated interactions with the force field, whereas no change in the baseline grip force was observed. Additionally, we ascertained that participants formed their perceived stiffness by calculating a weighted average of the different stiffness levels applied by a given force field. We conclude that the medium variability level can be effective in inducing uncertainty in both perception and action.
AB - Haptic information can be used to create our perception of the stiffness of objects and to regulate grip force. Introducing noise into sensory inputs can create uncertainty, yet a method of creating haptic uncertainty without distorting the haptic information has yet to be discovered. Toward this end, in this article, we investigated the effect of varying haptic information between consecutive interactions with an elastic force field on stiffness perception and grip force control. In a stiffness discrimination task, participants interacted with force fields multiple times. Low, medium, and high variability levels were created by drawing the stiffness level applied in each consecutive interaction within a trial from normal distributions. Perceptual haptic uncertainty was created only by the medium variability level. Moreover, all the variability levels affected the grip force control: the modulation of the grip force with the load force decreased with repeated interactions with the force field, whereas no change in the baseline grip force was observed. Additionally, we ascertained that participants formed their perceived stiffness by calculating a weighted average of the different stiffness levels applied by a given force field. We conclude that the medium variability level can be effective in inducing uncertainty in both perception and action.
KW - Computational models
KW - grip force
KW - stiffness perception
KW - uncertainty
KW - variability.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85099728930&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/TOH.2021.3052136
DO - 10.1109/TOH.2021.3052136
M3 - Article
C2 - 33449879
AN - SCOPUS:85099728930
VL - 14
SP - 513
EP - 525
JO - IEEE Transactions on Haptics
JF - IEEE Transactions on Haptics
SN - 1939-1412
IS - 3
ER -