Search

Emotional response to haptic stimuli is a widely researched topic, but the combination of vibrotactile and thermal stimuli requires more attention. The purpose of this study is to investigate emotional response to vibrothermal stimulation by combining spatiotemporal vibrotactile stimulus with dynamic thermal stimulus (hot or cold). The vibrotactile and thermal stimuli were produced using the Haptic Chair and the Embr wave thermal bracelet, respectively. The results show that spatiotemporal vibrotactile patterns and their duration, and dynamic thermal stimulation, have an independent effect on the emotional response. Increasing duration generally increases the valence and arousal of emotional response. Shifting the dynamic temperature from cold to hot generally decreases the valence of emotional response but has no significant effect on arousal. Nevertheless, certain spatiotemporal patterns do exhibit unique responses to changes in dynamic temperature, although no interaction effects were found. The results show the potential of designing affective haptic interfaces using multimodal vibrothermal feedback.

This paper introduces a novel haptic interface for use as a general-purpose sensory substitution device called the Low Resolution Haptic Interface (LRHI). A prototype of the LRHI was developed and tested in a user study for its effectiveness in conveying information through the sense of touch as well as for use in interactive applications. Results are promising, showing that participants were able to accurately discriminate a range of both static and dynamic haptic patterns using the LRHI with a composite accuracy of 98.38%. The user study also showed that participants were able to sucessfully learn to play a completely haptic interactive cat-mouse game with the device.

This Research to Practice Full Paper (Part II) describes how students, working on paid projects, have benefited from a comprehensive engineering Academic Success and Professional Development (ASAP) mentoring-scholarship project-centric program at Arizona State University (ASU) – and the associated community of practice (consisting of learners and faculty-industry-peer mentors) – described within Part I. The program, while focusing on upper-division transfer students, serves upper-division non-transfers and some graduate students as well. Central to the program is that scholars must participate in career-steering/shaping projects in an area of national importance. In this paper, 14 scholars are considered. All 14 scholars were mentored by the main author (professor and director of the NSF-funded program). For each scholar, we describe the impact of key program activities/instruments/constructs/projects on the scholar and the group of 14 scholars considered. All were selected to pursue funded projects - 11 for Spring 2018, 8 renewed for Fall 2018, 3 for new Fall projects and 11 for summer 2018 projects. For each scholar, their projects and future plans are described. The group of 14 scholars is also compared to the larger cohort of 74 scholars described in Part I in terms of key program activities/outcomes.