van Beek Femke E, Tiest Wouter M Bergmann, Kappers Astrid M L
IEEE Trans Haptics. 2013 Oct-Dec;6(4):399-407. doi: 10.1109/TOH.2013.37.
Although force-feedback devices are already being used, the human ability to perceive forces has not been documented thoroughly. The haptic perception of force direction and magnitude has mostly been studied in discrimination tasks in the direction of gravity. In our study, the influence of physical force direction on haptic perception of force magnitude and direction was studied in the horizontal plane. Subjects estimated the direction and magnitude of a force exerted on their stationary hand. A significant anisotropy in perception of force magnitude and direction was found. Force direction data showed significant subject-dependent distortions at various physical directions. Normalized force magnitude data showed a consistent elliptical pattern, with its minor axis pointing roughly from the subject's hand to his/her shoulder. This pattern could be related to arm stiffness or manipulability patterns, which are also ellipse-shaped. These ellipses have an orientation consistent with the distortion measured in our study. So, forces in the direction of highest stiffness and lowest manipulability are perceived as being smaller. It therefore seems that humans possess a "sense of effort" rather than a "sense of force," which may be more useful in everyday life. These results could be useful in the design of haptic devices.
尽管力反馈设备已经在使用，但人类感知力的能力尚未得到充分记录。力方向和大小的触觉感知大多是在重力方向的辨别任务中进行研究的。在我们的研究中，在水平面研究了物理力方向对力大小和方向触觉感知的影响。受试者估计施加在其静止手上的力的方向和大小。发现力大小和方向感知存在显著的各向异性。力方向数据在不同物理方向上显示出显著的受试者依赖型失真。归一化力大小数据显示出一致的椭圆形模式，其短轴大致从受试者的手指向其肩部。这种模式可能与同样呈椭圆形的手臂刚度或可操纵性模式有关。这些椭圆的方向与我们研究中测量的失真一致。因此，在最高刚度和最低可操纵性方向上的力被感知为较小。所以，人类似乎拥有一种“努力感”而非“力感”，这在日常生活中可能更有用。这些结果可能对触觉设备的设计有用。
