Toward Haptic Communication: Tactile Alphabets Based on Fingertip Skin Stretch

This paper studies the possibility to convey information using tactile stimulation on fingertips. We designed and evaluated three tactile alphabets which are rendered by stretching the skin of the index's fingertip: (1) a Morse-like alphabet, (2) a symbolic alphabet using two successive dashes, and (3) a display of Roman letters based on the Unistrokes alphabet. All three alphabets (26 letters each) were evaluated through a user study in terms of recognition rate, intuitiveness, and learnability. Participants were able to perceive and recognize the letters with very good results (80-97 percent recognition rates). Taken together, our results pave the way to novel kinds of communication using tactile modality.