Gesture Controlled Virtual Instrument with Dynamic Vibrotactile Feedback

This paper investigates whether a dynamic vibrotactile feedback improves the playability of a gesture controlled virtual instrument. The instrument described in this study is based on a virtual control surface that player strikes with a hand held sensor-actuator device. We designed two tactile cues to augment the stroke across the control surface: a static and dynamic cue. The static cue was a simple burst of vibration triggered when crossing the control surface. The dynamic cue was continuous vibration increasing in amplitude when approaching the surface. We arranged an experiment to study the influence of the tactile cues in performance. In a tempo follow task, the dynamic cue yielded significantly the best temporal and periodic accuracy and control of movement velocity and amplitude. The static cue did not significantly improve the rhythmic accuracy but assisted the control of movement velocity compared to the condition without tactile feedback at all. The findings of the study indicate that careful design of dynamic vibrotactile feedback can improve the controllability of gesture based virtual instrument.