Investigating haptic perception of and physiological responses to air vortex rings on a user's cheek

Haptic perception is one of the primary means of interaction with the world. Recent research on affective haptics suggests that it can affect emotional and behavioral responses. In this study, we evaluate user perceptions of haptic stimuli generated by air vortex rings on the cheek and investigate the effects on their physiological responses. To develop a cheek haptic display, we investigated and found that the cheek had enough resolution to perceive the differences in haptic stimuli in a two-point discrimination threshold test of the face. Additionally, the intensities of the haptic stimuli for experiments were determined by investigating the subjective impressions of different stimuli pairs. Finally, we conducted experiments to evaluate quantitatively the effects of four different combinations of haptic stimuli on the physiological responses in terms of stress modification, brainwave activities, task performance, and subjective assessment. The results suggest that different stimuli affect physiological responses and task performance.