Design and Evaluation of a Multimodal Haptic Vest

The human torso encompasses a large haptic
perceptual area where cutaneous feedback can be delivered.
Haptic vests can provide different effects in order to present
information or enrich and even alter perception. Over the last
decades, different haptic vest designs have been proposed for use
in spatial navigation aid and virtual environments. However, most
of the designs so far used one type of stimulation only. Here we
present a haptic vest design that can provide feedback in three
cutaneous modalities: vibrotactile feedback, punctual force, and
warmth. We conducted a first evaluation experiment to study the
suitability of our design. We conclude that our design is suited to
deliver multimodal feedback to the torso area. The incorporation
of different haptic modalities on the vest allows the presentation of
diverse perceptual effects that can be beneficial in altering human
time perception.