Towards Pleasant Touch: Vibrotactile Grids for Social Touch Interactions

In this paper, we realize a wearable tactile device that delivers smooth pleasant strokes, those resemble of caressing and calming sensations, on the forearm. In Study 1, we develop a psychophysical model of continuous illusory motion on a discrete vibrotactile array. We use this model to generate a variety of tactile strokes that vary in frequency (quality), amplitude (strength) and duration (speed), and test them on a hedonic scale of pleasant-unpleasant in Study 2. Our results show that low frequency (