Effects of a feedback signal in a computer mouse on movement behaviour, muscle load, productivity, comfort and user friendliness

To study the effects of a tactile feedback signal in a computer mouse on reduction of hovering behaviour and consequently on changes in muscle load, productivity, comfort and user friendliness, a comparative, experimental study with repeated measures was conducted. Fifteen subjects performed five trials with different mouse actions and a standardised task, once with a mouse with the feedback signal and once with a mouse without the feedback signal. Holding the hand just above the mouse caused higher muscle loading than clicking and scrolling. Holding the hand on the mouse caused higher muscle loading than resting the hand on the desk. The feedback signal effectively decreased hovering behaviour. It also led to a more dynamic activation pattern of the extensor muscles of the forearm. The overall opinion of the feedback signal for future use was rated as somewhat variable. No effects on discomfort or productivity were found. The use of a mouse with a tactile vibrating feedback signal seems promising for preventing arm complaints, although more research is needed to establish the clinical relevance.     

Effects of a feedback signal in a computer mouse on movement behaviour,muscle load,productivity, comfort and user friendliness

To study the effects of a tactile feedback signal in a computer mouse on reduction of hovering behaviour and consequently on changes in muscle load, productivity, comfort and user friendliness, a comparative, experimental study with repeated measures was conducted. Fifteen subjects performed five trials with different mouse actions and a standardised task, once with a mouse with the feedback signal and once with a mouse without the feedback signal. Holding the hand just above the mouse caused higher muscle loading than clicking and scrolling. Holding the hand on the mouse caused higher muscle loading than resting the hand on the desk. The feedback signal effectively decreased hovering behaviour. It also led to a more dynamic activation pattern of the extensor muscles of the forearm. The overall opinion of the feedback signal for future use was rated as somewhat variable. No effects on discomfort or productivity were found. The use of a mouse with a tactile vibrating feedback signal seems promising for preventing arm complaints, although more research is needed to establish the clinical relevance.     

An exploratory study of multimodal interaction modeling based on neural computation基于神经计算的多通道交互模型的探索性研究

Multimodal interaction serves an important role in human-computer interaction. In this paper we propose a multimodal interaction model based on the latest cognitive research findings. The proposed model combines two proven neural computations, and helps to reveal the enhancement or depression influence of multimodal presentation upon the corresponding interaction task performance. A set of experiments is designed and conducted within the constraints of the model, which demonstrates the observed performance enhancement and depression effects. Our exploration and the experimental results help to further solve the question about how tactile feedback signal contribute the multimodal interaction efficiency which could provide guidelines for designing the tactile feedback in multimodal interaction.     

The use of force feedback and auditory cues for performance of an assembly task in an immersive virtual environment

Using an immersive virtual environment, this study investigated whether the inclusion of force feedback or auditory cues improved manipulation performance and subjective reports of usability for an assembly task. Twenty-four volunteers (12 males and 12 females) were required to assemble and then disassemble five interconnecting virtual parts with either auditory, force, or no feedback cues provided. Performance for the assembly task was measured using completion time and number of collisions between parts, while the users preferences across conditions were evaluated using subjective reports of usability. The results indicated that the addition of force feedback slowed completion time and led to more collisions between parts for males. In contrast, females exhibited no change in the mean completion time for the assembly task but did show an increase in collision counts. Despite these negative performance findings when adding force feedback, users did report perceived increases in realism, helpfulness and utility towards the assembly task when force feedback was provided. Unlike force feedback, the results showed that auditory feedback, indicating that parts had collided during the assembly task, had no negative performance effects on the objective measures while still increasing perceived realism and overall user satisfaction. When auditory cues and force feedback were presented together, performance times, number of collisions, and usability were not improved compared to conditions containing just auditory cues or force feedback alone. Based on these results, and given the task and display devices used in the present study, the less costly option of excluding auditory and force feedback cues would produce the best performance when measured by the number of collisions and completion time. However, if increased ratings of usability for an assembly task are desired while maintaining objective performance levels and reduced cost, then the inclusion of auditory feedback cues is best.     

The effect of a feedback signal in a computer mouse on hovering behaviour, productivity, comfort and usability in a field study

The aim of this study was to determine the effect of a tactile feedback signal on hovering behaviour, productivity, usability and comfort after 1 week of using an experimental mouse. In a randomized controlled trial, a regular computer mouse was compared to a new developed mouse with a tactile, vibrating feedback signal to prevent unnecessary hovering above the computer mouse. According to this study, participants do decrease their hovering behaviour when using a mouse with tactile feedback. Furthermore, the mouse with tactile feedback did not influence productivity. Usability was rated somewhat mixed. The use of a mouse with a tactile vibrating feedback signal seems promising for preventing neck, shoulder and arm complaints. Further research is needed to study long-term effects on (prevention of) neck, shoulder and arm complaints and development of learning effects.     

The effects of feedback on performance and retention of skill for a natural language interface

This study investigated the effectiveness of different types of on-line feedback following user errors for informing users of the information and functions available in a system with a natural language interface. Twenty-four individuals performed a task based on an industry cost savings program, in which they were given general goals to pursue with regard to the task. Three feedback levels which differed according to the type and amount of feedback provided, along with two levels of system complexity, were examined. In addition, subjects performed the task again after one week to determine the effects of feedback on retention. Results indicated that the subjects in the second level of feedback generally performed better with respect to accessing system functions and information than those in the first level. Although there was some performance improvement from the second to third level, it was not significant. However, the third level of feedback did significantly improve the efficiency with which subjects used information to complete the task during the return condition. Overall, feedback did not affect the errors made, though at certain more limited stages of the tasks this effect was observed.     

Human interaction with robotic systems: performance and workload evaluations

Abstract

We first tested the effect of differing tactile informational forms (i.e. directional cues vs. static cues vs. dynamic cues) on objective performance and perceived workload in a collaborative human–robot task. A second experiment evaluated the influence of task load and informational message type (i.e. single words vs. grouped phrases) on that same collaborative task. In both experiments, the relationship of personal characteristics (attentional control and spatial ability) to performance and workload was also measured. In addition to objective performance and self-report of cognitive load, we evaluated different physiological responses in each experiment. Results showed a performance–workload association for directional cues, message type and task load. EEG measures however, proved generally insensitive to such task load manipulations. Where significant EEG effects were observed, right hemisphere amplitude differences predominated, although unexpectedly these latter relationships were negative. Although EEG measures were partially associated with performance, they appear to possess limited utility as measures of workload in association with tactile displays.

Practitioner Summary: As practitioners look to take advantage of innovative tactile displays in complex operational realms like human–robotic interaction, associated performance effects are mediated by cognitive workload. Despite some patterns of association, reliable reflections of operator state can be difficult to discern and employ as the number, complexity and sophistication of these respective measures themselves increase.     

一种虚拟环境温度触觉再现仿真系统设计

分析了温度触觉感知特性,提出了手指和物体接触时各自表面的温度变化过程,结合单热源温度触觉再现装置设计了一种基于三维力反馈手控器的虚拟环境温度触觉再现仿真系统。手控器可控制虚拟手的动作,对虚拟物体进行温度和力的感知。仿真系统中能再现手指与不同热属性物体接触时的温度变化和力变化,且视觉效果逼真,体现了温度触觉再现的实时性和有效性。     

Feedback quality and environmentally friendly use of domestic central heating systems

The study examined the influence of system-embedded feedback on user behaviour during the environmentally friendly operation of a central heating system. A PC-based simulation, called CHESS, was developed to model the critical features of a central heating system. After having received 30 min of training on the simulation task, 60 participants worked on a series of operational scenarios under different levels of system feedback. In addition to the collection of various performance measures (e.g. energy consumption, energy wastage), a range of user variables was collected (e.g. environmental concern). As hypothesized, the results showed that increased feedback resulted in improved environmentally friendly performance and, more importantly, the specific feedback indicator influenced the type of strategy used to improve human – machine system performance. A major implication is that system designers need to develop feedback indicators that are chiefly influenced by user behaviour and are largely immune to factors that are beyond the user's control (e.g. weather conditions).     

Haptic User Interfaces for the Visually Impaired: Implications for Haptically Enhanced Science Learning Systems

The overall quality of haptic user interfaces designed to support visually impaired students' science learning through sensorial feedback was systematically studied to investigate task performance and user behavior. Fourteen 6th- to 11th-grade students with visual impairments recruited from a state-funded blind school were asked to perform three main tasks (i.e., menu selection, structure exploration, and force recognition) using haptic user interfaces and a haptic device. This study used several dependent measures that are categorized into three types of variables: (a) task performance including success rate, workload, and task completion time; (b) user behavior defined as cursor movements proportionately represented from the user's cursor positional data; and (c) user preference. Results showed that interface type has significant effects on task performance, user behavior, and user preference, with varying degree of impact to participants with severe visual impairments performing the tasks. The results of this study as well as a set of refined design guidelines and principles should provide insights to the future research of haptic user interfaces that can be used when developing haptically enhanced science learning systems for the visually impaired.     

Feedback quality and environmentally friendly use of domestic central heating systems

The study examined the influence of system-embedded feedback on user behaviour during the environmentally friendly operation of a central heating system. A PC-based simulation, called CHESS, was developed to model the critical features of a central heating system. After having received 30 min of training on the simulation task, 60 participants worked on a series of operational scenarios under different levels of system feedback. In addition to the collection of various performance measures (e.g. energy consumption, energy wastage), a range of user variables was collected (e.g. environmental concern). As hypothesized, the results showed that increased feedback resulted in improved environmentally friendly performance and, more importantly, the specific feedback indicator influenced the type of strategy used to improve human - machine system performance. A major implication is that system designers need to develop feedback indicators that are chiefly influenced by user behaviour and are largely immune to factors that are beyond the user's control (e.g. weather conditions).     

The roles of sensory modalities in collaborative virtual environments (CVEs)

This study was conducted to assess the effects of sensorial modalities on user performance, perception, and behavior in collaborative virtual environments (CVEs). Participants played a CVE game, air hockey, together with a remote partner under different sensory modality conditions, depending on the type of sensory feedback provided: visual-only (V), visual–haptic (V + H), and visual–haptic–audio feedback (V + H + A). Three types of measurements were used as dependent variables: (1) task performance measured as playing time, (2) user perception including the sense of presence, the sense of togetherness, and perceived collaboration, and (3) behavior measurement including the amount of force applied and the mallet deviation. Results of the study indicated that the task performance, perception, and user behavior in CVEs can be affected due to supported sensory modalities. Therefore, the multiple sensory information types that are required to perform the task at hand should be provided to effectively support collaboration between people in CVEs. The outcomes of this research should have a broad impact on multimodal user interaction, including research on physiological, psychophysical, and psychological mechanisms underlying human perception on multisensory feedback in CVEs.     

Performance effects of reduced proprioceptive feedback on touch typists and casual users in a typing task

This study examined performance and acceptance effects of lack of kinesthetic and tactile feedback from the keyboard in a typing task with two subject groups of differing skill level: touch typists and casual users. Subjects' objective performance (e.g., speed, accuracy, throughput) and subjective acceptance (questionnaire) was evaluated for both a conventional full travel keyboard and a prototype piezoelectric flat keyboard which lacked familiar kinesthetic and tactile feedback. Any performance decrement present with the flat keyboard was expected to diminish with practice for the touch typists due to transfer and adaptation of typing skills. Performance for both subject groups was significantly higher with the conventional keyboard and touch typists' performance was more adversely affected by the flat keyboard than casual users'. No performance improvement with practice was found for one subject group relative to the other or for one keyboard relative to the other. It was concluded the touch typists were unable to adapt to the unusual feedback conditions present with the piezo-electric fiat keyboard.     

Tactile feedback enhanced hand gesture interaction at large, high-resolution displays

Human beings perceive their surroundings based on sensory information from diverse channels. However, for human–computer interaction we mostly restrict the user on visual perception. In this paper, we contribute to the investigation of tactile feedback as an additional perception modality. Therefore, we will first discuss existing user studies and provide a classification scheme for tactile feedback techniques. We will then present and discuss a comparative evaluation study based on the ISO 9241-9 [Ergonomic requirements for office work with visual display terminals (VDTs) – Part 9: requirements for non-keyboard input devices, 2000]. The 20 participants performed horizontal and vertical one-directional tapping tasks with hand gesture input with and without tactile feedback in front of a large, high-resolution display. In contrast to previous research, we cannot confirm a benefit of tactile feedback on user performance. Our results show no significant effect in terms of throughput (effective index of performance (IPe)) and even a significant higher error rate for horizontal target alignment when using tactile feedback. Based on these results, we suggest that tactile feedback can interfere with other senses in a negative way, resulting in the observed higher error rate for horizontal targets. Therefore, more systematic research is needed to clarify the influencing factors on the usefulness of tactile feedback. Besides these results, we found a significant difference in favor of the horizontal target alignment compared with the vertical one in terms of the effective index of performance (IPe), confirming the work by Dennerlein et al. [Force feedback improves performance for steering and combined steering–targeting tasks, in: CHI ’00: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2000, pp. 423–429].     

具有触觉和肌电控制功能的仿生假手研究

研究一种能感知接触和滑动、且由肌电信号控制的高仿生能力电动假手.触滑觉组合传感器以压电材料PVDF为敏感体,安装于仿生电动假手的手指上,具有良好的动态触、滑传感能力,同时,假手佩戴者通过一皮肤刺激器获得人工触滑感觉.用改进后的功率谱比值与基于Bayes统计决策的多信息融合相结合的方法完成肌电信号的多运动模式识别,并在电动假手的控制上,采用肌电信号与触滑感觉信号作为双重控制信号源,取得了良好的仿生控制效果.     

Observed finger behaviour during computer mouse use

Two-button computer mouse users may exhibit sustained, static finger lifting behaviours to prevent inadvertent activations by avoiding finger pressure on the buttons, which leads to prolonged, static finger extensor muscle loading. One hundred graduate students were observed during normal computer work in a university computer facility to qualify and quantify the prevalence of lifted finger behaviours and extended finger postures, as well as wrist/forearm and grip behaviour, during specific mouse activities. The highest prevalences observed were 48% of the students lifted their middle finger during mouse drag activities, and 23% extended their middle finger while moving the mouse. In addition, 98% of the students rested their wrist and forearm (77%) or wrist only (21%) on the workstation surface, and 97% had an extended wrist posture (15 degrees -30 degrees ) when using the mouse. Potential applications of these findings include future computer input device designs to reduce finger lifting behaviour and exposures to risk factors of hand/forearm musculoskeletal pain.     

Presentation of Surface Height Profiles Based on Frequency Modulation at Constant Amplitude Using Vibrotactile Elements

This study attempted to observe what effects the frequency modulation of vibration elements produce in representing a tactile shape. Tactile shapes were modulated based on frequency difference at constant amplitude through a tactile feedback array of 30 (5 × 6) pins, which stimulated the finger pad. Experiment I showed that participants feel height changes when modulating frequency. In Experiment II, the participants were asked to discriminate three basic tactile shape patterns, which were generated with different frequencies at constant amplitude. Experiment II proved that spatial height information can be represented by modulating temporal information. In Experiment III, the frequency modulation method was applied to the tactile mouse system. Dynamic frequency modulation at passive touch can be used to transmit tactile height pattern information to the user of the mouse pointer for more practical application. The results showed that the participants were able to discern eight predefined shapes with an accuracy of 98.4% upon passive touch.     

Generating Diverse Compound Critiques

Critiquing is a powerful form of feedback often used by conversational recommender systems. There are two main types of critiquing; unit and compound. Unit critiques allow the user to provide limited feedback at the feature-level by constraining a single feature’s value space. Compound critiques, on the other hand, allow the user to manipulate multiple features simultaneously and therefore can help the user to locate the product they are looking for more efficiently. However, the usefulness of the compound critiquing approach is compromised when all the options that are presented to the user are very similar to each-other. In this paper we propose the idea of presenting diverse compound critiques, and evaluate the effectiveness of two alternative approaches in terms of their recommendation performance. Specifically, we look at the degree to which critique diversity can be improved, the effect this may have on user interaction, and its expected impact on recommendation efficiency and quality     

Haptic force-feedback devices for the office computer: performance and musculoskeletal loading issues

Pointing devices, essential input tools for the graphical user interface (GUI) of desktop computers, require precise motor control and dexterity to use. Haptic force-feedback devices provide the human operator with tactile cues, adding the sense of touch to existing visual and auditory interfaces. However, the performance enhancements, comfort, and possible musculoskeletal loading of using a force-feedback device in an office environment are unknown. Hypothesizing that the time to perform a task and the self-reported pain and discomfort of the task improve with the addition of force feedback, 26 people ranging in age from 22 to 44 years performed a point-and-click task 540 times with and without an attractive force field surrounding the desired target. The point-and-click movements were approximately 25% faster with the addition of force feedback (paired t-tests, p < 0.001). Perceived user discomfort and pain, as measured through a questionnaire, were also smaller with the addition of force feedback (p < 0.001). However, this difference decreased as additional distracting force fields were added to the task environment, simulating a more realistic work situation. These results suggest that for a given task, use of a force-feedback device improves performance, and potentially reduces musculoskeletal loading during mouse use. Actual or potential applications of this research include human-computer interface design, specifically that of the pointing device extensively used for the graphical user interface.     

Countering loss of vigilance in sonar watchstanding using signal injection and performance feedback

Sonar operators are confronted with a watchstanding task that demands high levels of vigilance for the appearance of weak or transitory signals. Maintaining vigilance is difficult because of very low target signal rates and an open loop system with (usually) no performance feedback. Four experiments were conducted to see whether operator vigilance, as reflected by target detection latency, could be enhanced through signal injection and performance feedback. In each of these experiments, target detection performance was markedly enhanced. The effects were operationally and statistically significant and generally increased with time on watch. The beneficial effects were shown not to be simply a function of increased signal rate due to signal injection. Analysis using a signal detection theory model showed that the target reporting threshold dropped under the experimental treatment and detection efficiency increased. In addition, it was shown that the subjects spent significantly more time observing the search display with signal injection and feedback. On the negative side, there was a modest increase in false alarms which was judged to be tolerable in view of the marked reduction in target detection times. Most false alarms were quickly recognized and reported as such. These beneficial effects were confirmed in a fifth experiment using trained sonar operators as subjects and prototype displays of an advanced sonar system.