Battaglia Edoardo, Bianchi Matteo, D'Angelo Maria Laura, D'Imperio Mariapaola, Cannella Ferdinando, Scilingo Enzo P, Bicchi Antonio
Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2015;2015:2430-3. doi: 10.1109/EMBC.2015.7318884.
Touch is an extremely dynamic sense. To take into account this aspect, it has been hypothesized that there are mechanisms in the brain that specialize in processing dynamic tactile stimuli, in a way not too dissimilar from what happens for optical flow in dynamic vision. The concept of tactile flow, related to the rate of expansion of isostrain volumes in the human fingerpad, was used to explain some perceptual illusions as well as mechanisms of human softness perception. In this paper we describe a computational model of tactile flow, and apply it to a finite element model of interaction between deformable bodies. The shape and material properties of the bodies are modeled from those of a human fingertip interacting with specimens with different softness properties. Results show that the rate of expansion of isostrain volumes can be used to discriminate different materials in terms of their softness characteristics.
触觉是一种极其动态的感觉。考虑到这一方面，有人提出大脑中存在专门处理动态触觉刺激的机制，其方式与动态视觉中光流的处理方式并无太大不同。与人类指尖等应变体积的膨胀率相关的触觉流概念，被用于解释一些感知错觉以及人类柔软度感知机制。在本文中，我们描述了一种触觉流的计算模型，并将其应用于可变形物体之间相互作用的有限元模型。物体的形状和材料特性是根据与具有不同柔软度特性的样本相互作用的人类指尖建模的。结果表明，等应变体积的膨胀率可用于根据材料的柔软度特征来区分不同材料。
