Abstract
This study investigated whether adding auditory angular and curved sounds to tactile angle and curve shapes – one unspecified sound to one unspecified shape – positively influences the accuracy and exploration time in recognising tactile angles and curves when experienced and inexperienced in using haptic touch. A within-participant experiment was conducted, with two groups of participants: experienced and inexperienced in using haptic touch, and with two conditions: congruous (e.g., angle shape and angular sound) and incongruous (e.g., angle shape and curved sound) tactile and auditory shape information. Adding congruous auditory angular and curved sounds to tactile angle and curve shapes positively influences the accuracy in recognising tactile angles and curves both when experienced and inexperienced in using haptic touch, and the exploration time on correct recognitions when experienced. People integrate tactile and auditory (angle; curve) shape information and this improves their proficiency in recognising tactile angles and curves.
Highlights
Haptic touch – the combination of touch and movement (Katz, 1989; Millar, 1997, 2008) – mixes up ≈70% of tactile two-dimensional (2D) angles and curves (Graven, 2016), which makes it difficult for people to recognise even the most common shapes
Two chi-square goodness-of-fit tests were conducted to test whether adding congruous auditory angular and curved sounds to tactile angle and curve shapes positively influenced the accuracy in recognising tactile angles and curves when experienced, and inexperienced in using haptic touch
Adding congruous auditory angular and curved sounds to tactile angle and curve shapes positively influenced the accuracy in recognising tactile angles and curves, both when experienced and inexperienced in using haptic touch
Summary
Haptic touch – the combination of touch and movement (Katz, 1989; Millar, 1997, 2008) – mixes up ≈70% of tactile two-dimensional (2D) angles and curves (Graven, 2016), which makes it difficult for people to recognise even the most common shapes. The improvement in recognition accuracy could have resulted from the use of categorical (bouba; kiki) information in the task instructions, a word-shape or word-sound-shape (instead of sound-shape) association by the participants, together with the repetition of angles and curves both in the tactile shapes and the auditory sounds or by this alone, rather than facilitative effects of auditory angular and curved sounds (see Fryer et al, 2014; Graven and Desebrock, 2018; Heller et al, 1996; Heller & Gentaz, 2014; Köhler, 1929; Pathak & Pring, 1989; Ramachandran & Hubbard, 2001). This study, investigated whether adding auditory angular and curved sounds to tactile angle and curve shapes – one unspecified sound to one unspecified shape – positively influences the accuracy and exploration time in recognising tactile angles and curves when experienced and inexperienced in using haptic touch
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