HapPull: Enhancement of self-motion by pulling clothes

Abstract

The realism of audiovisual media with self-motion, such as racing games and movies, is enhanced by the sensation of bodily motion. In various studies, this sensation is presented by actually moving the user’s body in accordance with the audiovisual motion. However, such devices tend to be bulky, and compact devices can only simulate one sensation. In our previous study, we proposed a simple and effective system for simulating self-motion. The compact system uses DC motors and string to pull the user’s clothes and thus elicit both skin sensation and deep sensation. However, the system only pulls the clothes backward. Here, we present our improved system named HapPull, which pulls the user’s clothes both forward and backward and presents torque by pulling the clothes diagonally. We investigated whether users perceived the presented sensation as acceleration or velocity, and found that the physical sensation that is related to the traction force created by our system depends on the nature of the visual stimulus.