Presenting virtual stiffness with suction pressure

Summary form only given, as follows. This demo provides a hands-on experience to support the study on modulating the perceived stiffness by “controlling” the perceived force evoked by suction pressure stimuli. The purpose of this work is to demonstrate the possibility of controlling suction pressure stimuli to enhance stiffness perception. The approach is to sense the force acting on a grasped object and use that signal to control the tactile stimuli for inducing strain at the contact areas of the skin. The idea is to increase the strain energy density at the contacts to further stimulate the receptors. A psychophysical function was used to control the amount of stimulation. The pressure stimuli were thought to enhance the strain energy density on the skin relative to the applied external force. From the subjects' responses, we found that the perceived stiffness of a spring sample appears to increase when adjusting the gain of the force signal.