Single-Actuator Simultaneous Haptic Rendering for Multiple Vital Signs.

Haptic displays have been investigated as a possible way to reduce the effects of alarm fatigue in clinical environments. Previous displays have employed multiple vibrotactile actuators, using the spatial dimension to aid in conveying information of a number of vital signs. However, inspired by prior work investigating multidimensional tactons, we wished to examine the effectiveness of a single actuator to communicate information regarding multiple vital signs simultaneously. The results of our evaluation suggest that this is not only feasible, but that with a carefully designed encoding strategy, we may be able obtain perception performance comparable to that achievable with multi-actuator displays.