palmscape: Calm and pleasant vibrotactile signals

Abstract

The goal of the present study was to design vibrotactile signals that support a more engaging and delightful user experience. Using a four-tactor display called palmScape, custom-designed signals were created to capture the essence of natural phenomena such as breathing, heartbeat, and earthquake. A key insight was the use of slow motions to convey aliveness in a calm manner. Fourteen participants evaluated twenty vibrotactile signals by providing valence and arousal ratings. Our custom-designed patterns were consistently rated at higher valence levels than reference signals from the literature at similar arousal levels. Eight of the sixteen custom signals occupied the fourth quadrant of the valence-arousal space that corresponds to calm and pleasant ratings, a space that is rarely occupied by other studies of vibrotactile signals. In this article, we share our design approach, signal parameters, and affective rating results. Our work will hopefully encourage more research on affective haptics.