An Evaluation of Human Tactile Sensibility and Its Analysis Based on Physiology and Biomechanics

This paper describes an experiment on the evaluation of human sensibility by monitoring responses to changes in the frequency and amplitude of a tactile display system. Preliminary tasks were performed to obtain adequate adjectives concerning texture presentation. And, in the main experiment, 7 selected sandpaper types and 15 selected combinations of frequencies and amplitudes of a tactile display were utilized to quantitatively evaluate the ten adjectives determined during preliminary tasks. The data show that a relationship exists between the independent variables (frequency, amplitude, and grit size) and the dependent variable (perceived texture). We then considered the perceived tactile perception in relation to viscoelastic properties of the human fingerpad. We obtained remarkable psychophysical results and also identified the relation between tactile sensation and the mechanical stimuli from a biomechanical viewpoint