The Perceived Urgency of Tactile Patterns

Abstract : The purpose of this research was to examine the effects of stimulus intensity and inter-stimulus interval (ISI) on the perceived urgency and on the detection and identification of tactile patterns. A tactile system that includes an adjustable belt developed by Engineering Acoustics Inc. (EAI) was used to provide tactile stimuli. This adjustable belt, which consists of eight EAI C2 tactors positioned at 45-degree intervals, was worn around each participant?s waist. Participants received tactile patterns at an intensity of either 12 dB or 23.5 dB with an ISI of either 0 ms (no interval) or 500 ms. Participants were asked to identify each tactile pattern that they received and rate how urgent they perceived the pattern to be on a scale of 1 to 10. Results show that participants were able to detect and identify tactile patterns with nearly 100% accuracy. Participants rated patterns that were provided at the 23.5 dB intensity with no ISI as the most urgent. Patterns provided at the 12 dB intensity with a 500 ms ISI were rated the least urgent.