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Human and Biomimetic Sensors
Published in Patrick F. Dunn, Fundamentals of Sensors for Engineering and Science, 2019
The sensors for touch, including pressure and vibration, are primary afferent nerve endings. These include Meissner corpuscles, Merkel receptors, Pacinian corpuscles, and Ruffini corpuscles (see Figure 3.13). Meissner corpuscles and Merkel receptors are located near the surface of the skin. The Meissner corpuscle, which is composed of dendrites contained within connective tissue, senses changes in texture and slow vibrations. The Merkel receptor, which has expanded dendrites, senses touch and sustained pressure. Pacinian corpuscles and Ruffini corpuscles are located in deeper layers of the skin. The Pacinian corpuscle, which consists of a single nerve ending contained within connective tissue, senses deep pressure and fast vibration. The Ruffini corpuscle, which has expansive nerve endings in a capsule of tissue, senses sustained pressure. Each sensor has a different sensory area, with the Meissner corpuscle having the smallest.
Theoretical consideration to a mode in planar motion against transient steering input
Published in Maksym Spiryagin, Timothy Gordon, Colin Cole, Tim McSweeney, The Dynamics of Vehicles on Roads and Tracks, 2018
Since lateral acceleration is proportional to the driver’s pressure sense, lateral jerk shown in Fig. 8(C) is proportional to the driver’s pressure-sense change. The pressure sensation change is perceived with the Pacinian corpuscle. Thus, as the magnitude of the pressure sense change of the driver, the smallness of Tr must be perceived by the driver. Hence, Tr is also supposed to represent the rear axle cornering force’s build-up in the driver’s “Following the rise-up of the steering angle input, the vehicle yaw velocity builds up at first, then, with a little delay, the rear axle cornering force builds up”. Therefore, the smaller the Tr is, the stronger the driver feels the rising of the rear cornering force, the handling seems to be more pleasant.
Chapter 3 Physics of the Senses
Published in B H Brown, R H Smallwood, D C Barber, P V Lawford, D R Hose, Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, 2017
As physicists and engineers we are interested in the detailed structure of the receptors, and in the means by which they might produce a response to different loads. In this brief overview we shall look a little more closely at one of the mechanoreceptors, the Pacinian corpuscle. These receptors are most abundant in the subcutaneous tissue under the skin, particularly in the fingers, the soles of the feet and the external genitalia. They are the largest of the receptors and the approximate shape of a rugby ball. They are typically about 1 mm, and up to 2 mm, long and about half as wide. They resemble an onion in structure, with up to 60 layers of flattened cells surrounding a central core, the whole being enclosed in a sheath of connective tissue. At the centre is a single non-myelinated nerve fibre of up to 10 µm in diameter, which becomes myelinated as it leaves the corpuscle. The Pacinian corpuscle serves most efficiently as a monitor of the rate of change of load rather than to the intensity of the load itself: it is often identified as a vibration transducer. Damask (1981) discusses a simple analytical model constructed by Loewenstein (see Damask 1981) to study the mechanical behaviour of the corpuscle. The model features a series of elastic membranes, ovoid in shape, connected at one end and each filled with a viscous fluid (see figure 3.1).
Tactile perception of skin: research on late positive component of event-related potentials evoked by friction
Published in The Journal of The Textile Institute, 2020
Wei Tang, Xiangyong Lu, Si Chen, Shirong Ge, Xianghong Jing, Xiaoyu Wang, Rui Liu, Hua Zhu
Tactile perception is a complex process that depends on surface properties (Hollins, Bensmaïa, & Washburn, 2001; Hollins & Risner, 2000). Friction plays an important role in tactile perception and is mediated by skin vibrations generated from tangential forces between the skin and surface (Chen, Ge, Tang, Zhang, & Chen, 2015). When a finger scans the surface of fabrics, the deformations and vibrations produced by friction forces stimulate sensory receptors in the skin. The Pacinian corpuscle is the main receptor that senses and transforms the skin vibrations to nerve action potentials, which have a frequency of 20–700 Hz (Bensmaïa & Hollins, 2005; Loewenstein, 1971; Mountcastle, LaMotte, & Carli, 1972).
Design Guidelines for Schematizing and Rendering Haptically Perceivable Graphical Elements on Touchscreen Devices
Published in International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction, 2020
Hari P. Palani, Paul D. S. Fink, Nicholas A. Giudice
Vibrotactile/haptic interaction, as is required on touch-screen devices, is an effective approach for replacing traditional embossed/raised tangible media designed to support blind and visually-impaired (BVI) users (Giudice et al., 2012). To govern and guide such applications, several standards and guidelines have been established for producing tangible graphics using hardcopy output produced by tactile embossers, microcapsule swell paper, and even for custom handmade graphics (Braille Authority of North America, 2010; Rowell & Ungar, 2003). Although these guidelines support the design of perceptually salient tangible graphics, they do not translate well to rendering digital graphical elements. This is because the perception of raised tangible media involves different stimuli and physical processes than are required for haptic touchscreen-based interactions enabled by vibrotactile sensation. While tactual perception of both types of stimuli inevitably involves multiple classes of mechanoreceptors and overlap of the neural channels mediating this information, based on what combinations of spatial, temporal, and thermal properties are present (Bolanowski et al., 1988), traditional embossed/raised tactile stimuli and the vibrotactile stimuli we studied here most likely utilize different fundamental receptor types. For instance, cutaneous stimulation from pressure-based mechanoreceptors on the fingertip from deformation caused by contact with vibrating stimuli on a flat touchscreen will be much less than would be elicited from activation of these receptors by skin displacements from finger movement over traditional embossed stimuli (Klatzky et al., 2014). By contrast, the touchscreen-based vibrotactile stimuli used here were likely prioritizing activation of Pacinian corpuscles in addition to pressure-based mechanoreceptors as the Pacinians are most associated with vibration and vibrotactile stimulation, with their peak sensitivity between 200 and 300 Hz (Loomis & Lederman, 1986). As the majority of vibration motors and actuators used in commercial smart devices operate around 250 Hz (Choi & Kuchenbecker, 2013), it is likely that the touchscreen-based haptic information extraction that occurred in these studies via the above-mentioned three-step process was primarily activated by these receptors. Therefore, the existing guidelines established to ensure perceptibility and salience based on the traditional pressure-based deformations and skin displacements required to perceive embossed stimuli and tangible graphics are not necessarily transferable to vibrotactile rendering of digital graphical elements, where perception occurs via a featureless flat screen and significant Pacinian innervation. While there is an active research area investigating parameters and guidelines for authoring graphical elements to support touch interactions in conjunction with visual access, no work to our knowledge has systematically investigated or rigorously identified the perceptual parameters for governing and supporting eyes-free touch (haptic) interactions.