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This reading is in the coursepack. The article was truly interesting (not just informative) because all of these phenomenon have similar manifestations in psycho-acoustics. It is simple to say touch, sight and sound all come together to give us a unified picture of the world around us. Nonetheless, "how" the picture is interpreted is complex. On some level, I think Josh has a good point. Nonetheless, the "virtual touch" is not a discrete part. It is something to intergrate into the whole of our senses. If it becomes part of a unified experience, it may not be the most profound step we've ever taken, but I'm willing to bet we'd miss it if it was taken away. ______ "we're fooled again by our constructive prowess. It's only because we're so fast and so effective at constructing objects of touch that it feels to us that we don't construct them at all." - What/how does this enable us? How are we, knowing this, able to make more of our world? The rabbit sensation - isn't this purely neurological, like tapping your knee and seeing your leg jump? Technology is about to usher us into an era of virtual touch." Sure, sure... for what, porn? Sure it drives the internet, but what other uses of touch are helpful in a virtual environment? How does this *really* inform interface design? joysticks with 'force feedback' ... leads to a much more compelling sense of immersion into the virtual worlds" - Is it really that compelling? If so, why aren't they more popular? Telemedicine aside, is there really a strong market for physical feedback devices? I would think that we'd rather do w/out the majority of sensations from our daily life. W/out the negative, the positive have no weight. I.e., coming out of a cold shadow into warm sunlight has little meaning without the shadow... Whether or not there is a strong market for haptic feedback does not mean that there is not value in exploring it. There are a number of applications besides telemedicine, the largest of which might be the gaming environment. Not being a gamer myself, it doesn't have strong value to me, but I can see how others might see value in it. Another "niche market" for haptics is in automated displays for people with significant vision impairment. I've seen a number of projects and products in this market, from "traditional" dynamic braille displays to haptic computer mice that respond to the graphic edges of the windows (not for the blind only) to low-resolution attempts at full 2D displays with haptic pixels. Again, not something that will make a huge difference in my own life, but I can see the value for others. Then there's the SensAble Phantom, designed as a modeling tool for 3D animators. Does it have a market? Hard to say yet, they've only been selling them for 10 years or so. Definitely a niche market at the moment, but apparently one that's big enough to support their business model. Haptic feedback doesn't have to mean active vibration, either. Most cars now have automatic brakes, but the brake pedal gets harder to press the further you press. A couple of recent rentals I've had even vibrated when my foot hit the bottom. That vibration isn't linked to the mechanism of braking, it's there to tell me to stop pressing. There are other examples, but whether or not there's a mass market remains to be seen. There are two points about this chapter of Hoffman's book that I'd like you to consider: First, the fact that touch, like vision and our other senses, is at least in part constructed by our minds is of use in technology design. Film has been taking advantage of it for nearly a century; it relies on the persistence of vision to create moving pictures where none exist. Sound design has followed in film's footsteps. We spatialize sound in our minds based on "parallax of the ears". One ear hears the sound slightly before the other, and our mind puts both together with our sense of balance to locate the sound. Second, we use all of our senses to negotiate everyday life. So when desiging new technologies, it's worth considering all of those senses. Engaging our sense of touch doesn't just mean haptics. Textures and temperatures can also be felt on the skin, and can carry a lot of information. Car doors commonly take advantage of this by texturing or shaping the controls on the doors, so you don't have to see them to distinguish them. So don't rule out the sense of touch when you're working on an interface. I would agree with the author that there is a lot of potential in this technology. Beyond gaming, there are also other forms of entertainment. At Disneyworld they have a 3D movie about Bugs, and at a certain point you are meant to feel the sensation of bugs scurrying behind your back. there are mechanisms built into the seats of the theater to accomplish this, and I have to admit it does add something to the experience. Is this a superfluous component of the medium? was sound? was color? not to say this is neccesarily as important, but I think it is another tool creators can use when it is a mature technology. More importantly though, I think this technology has the potential to have an even bigger impact on training. Beyond just medical training, the sorts of flight simulation scenarios discussed in the article should also be considered. In fact, i would argue that most forms of training that involves human interaction with a complex mechanical device (particularly one that moves with the user inside it) could benefit from adding touch sensations to the simulation. I think everyone from jewelers to plumbers could benefit. That said, I will acknowledge that it will be many moons before the technology becomes advanced and affordable enough for jewelers and plumbers. Excellent point about visual imparements and other good uses of haptic feedback - I esp. like the example of the brake that vibrates. I think my initial response was based in research I've done for telepresence work, which has shown pretty poor results. From what I know, vibrating joysticks, chairs, etc. have done terribly in the marketplace (which does not, as Tom points out, mean that they're bad points for research). The concept of "virtual touch" in this context seems, to me, to be one in which less is more. Outside of that, however, I'm curious to hear of other good examples of haptic feedback. One of my pet projects is a chording keyboard that lets you keep your haptic sense - to that extent I'm convinced of the value of haptics. But I've seen plenty of bad haptics in design, such as phones that dance off the table when they ring, or appliances that jump at you when you press a wrong button. Anybody have any examples of better designs, where the sense of touch is used appropriately and intuitively? This seems like an incredible combination with EMDR (maybe the "good example" josh was looking for?). Like when you are overcome with emotion, maybe even having a tantrum, a tactile non-sequitor can dispell/detour the snowball effect. An ice cube often does it. EMDR actually has to do with a neuro thing and eye movement, but is generally practiced by dispelling childhood traumas with handheld vibrating discs. the idea is (sort of nobody, particularly me, seems to really know why it works as well as it does) over time, your brain creates sort of ruts, habits in neural paths. you've learned to react to situations, have sensations you did during a traumatic childhood. but now that the trauma is long gone, the reaction is no longer appropriate. though you may still perceive the situation is not just always the same, but that you may not even be aware an alternative experience exists. for example, no one may be shouting at you. but you percieve, out of a life-long habit you learned growing up with an abusive parent, everyone is shouting at you. by inserting this unrelated tactile sensation, the path has to skip around now to accomodate. eventually, the rut is not the only alternative. gradually dropping the habit, you may find people often speak pleasantly to you, rarely seem angry. imagine then associations for a person causing tension. that tension could be monitored (and maybe even mapped) it could also trigger EMDR-like re-routing of neural paths. of course, it does seem like a little over-kill, when an ice cube is really sufficient. but combining the (primarily) gaming thing and EMDR, it seems like both disciplines could gain by quantum leaps from eachother. this book rocks. i started reading the rest. he mentions this thing in the first chapter, that's SO cool, everybody may dig this. you know how human retinas have million of little trios of R, G & B receptors. well, goldfish have 4 kinds and there's a kind of shrimp that sees with 10. so it seems, the 3 primary additive colors mostly just apply to humans, aren't actually so intrinsic to light. just the way we see it. then david made this cool observation that we almost arbitrarily section off the wave spectrums into colors, ultra-violet, etc. the way we calibrate it is just a product of the way our eyes work. so to a goldfish, infra-red may be like another color in the rainbow to us. imagine a magic marker set for us, we have names for maybe 3 squared colors, and call anything else a shade of those 9. such as blue and light blue, green and light green, etc. a goldfish would have 16 names (theoretically), varying combinations of it's primaries. if anybody has more to say, i'd be fascinated, so please post it. Off the top of my head, I think there could be many uses for haptic feedback. Like Andy said, in any virtual reality training situation, or medical (as stated in the article). But what about even practising your musical instrument? Sensing the touch of the clarinet in your fingers and lips and practising in any given moment without having to carry the clarinet case around? We could probably make amazingly efficient interfaces between ourselves and computers using this type of technology, eliminating the need for keyboards/mouse. How about in film or theatre? This could allow for a completely new genre of theatrical experiences where the viewer could have greater reactiveness with whatever is happening on stage. Because I think touch comes from such a private place, it would enhance the experience and the emotions that come along with it. And that's exactly what people go to the theatre for. Sorry Judson, I can't really think of any examples for your comment. But it is intriguing that we have completely different color-base systems compared to other animals. I have a feeling that even between ourselves, we perceive the same colors differently. Its all in our heads and its all something that our brain constructs. How that's done is probably the greatest mystery... But wouldn't it be boring if we knew all the answers? hey gilad, you said "And that's exactly what people go to the theatre for.", but something weird happened about 80+ years ago. talkies seem sort of a parallel to haptic stuff in entertainment, when first introduced, met with pretty adamant disdain or disinterest. people then (even Scientific American) made the very same arguments, had the same critical eye ("if it doesn't work seemlessly/perfectly, it doesn't work at all") as now we see with techy interactivity and traditional media. people argued that a more realistic interface wasn't the draw. that silent acting was an artform itself that drew people, and was being destroyed by smothering the art with noise. only much later did people see synch sound as enhansing realism. i sort of interpretted it as, as long as it's at least comprehensible, more reality doesn't really make anything more entertaining. "pong" is the classic example. the key for talkies was getting people to an al jolson flick, something they were already into, and slipped in a sound track (advertising it much less). in that context, they saw how audio can be a fun thing. rather than saying it's more accurate or informative of reality. at first glance, audiences didn't agree it was at all like realism (and shut off their curiosity for about 10 years). i think it was you that said "people love to buy, but hate being sold." Thanks for the information about the initial skepticism regarding audio in cinema, Judson. I feel that we get so focused sometimes on the troubles & limitations of current technologies that we forget to revisit earlier reactions to technological process. In response to Hoffman, I definitely see value (and danger) in expanding the haptic capability of our interfaces. So much of our experience and memory is formed, I think, by sensations that aren't in our immediate consciousness. By stimulating our sense of touch, technology could construct stickier memories. Are there similar notions yet in haptics research to pixel resolution in imaging and sampling rate in audio? How is the quality of the tactile experience quantified for technological research? |