Distinguishing vibrotactile effects with tactile mouse and trackball

Abstract

Vibration is used for drawing users' attention to notifications in electronic devices, such as mobile phones. However, it has not been studied how much information vibrotactile effects are capable of conveying. To begin this work we studied the detection thresholds for differences in frequency and magnitude of vibration with a mouse and a trackball in the frequency range from 10 to 40Hz. Twelve participants completed 30 trials with both devices. The task in each trial was to sort five effects in a descending order based on either their magnitude (16 trials) or frequency (14 trials). The results showed that magnitude was easier to distinguish than frequency. Moreover, the participants distinguished the differences between the effects better with the mouse than with the trackball.