The potential of large tactile arrays to improve robot perception for safe operation in human-dominated environments and of high-resolution tactile arrays to enable humanlevel dexterous manipulation is well accepted. However, the increase in the number of tactile sensing elements introduces challenges including wiring complexity, power consumption, and data processing. To help address these cha...

| This is the second part of a two-part paper that develops a method for the automatic conversion of images from visual to tactile form. In Part I, a variety of topics were reviewed including issues in human factors, access technology for tactile graphics production, and image processing. In this part, the material presented in the rst part is used to motivate, develop and support the methods u...

Many studies have found that visual cortical areas are active during tactile perception. Here we used positron emission tomographic (PET) scanning in normally sighted humans to show that extrastriate cortical regions are recruited in a task-specific manner during perceptual processing of tactile stimuli varying in two dimensions. Mental rotation of tactile Forms activated a focus around the ant...

Human skin is innervated with different tactile afferents, which are found at varying densities over the body. We investigate how the relationships between tactile pleasantness, sensitivity and discrimination differ across the skin. Tactile pleasantness was assessed by stroking a soft brush over the skin, using five velocities (0.3, 1, 3, 10, 30 cm s(-1)), known to differentiate hedonic touch, ...

This paper presents an analysis result of grasp-move-and-twist motions of robotic hands equipped with optical three-axis tactile sensor to evaluate performance of a new control algorithm based on tactile slippage sensation. The optical three-axis tactile sensor is capable of defining normal and shear forces simultaneously. The proposed algorithm consists of robot arm and hand controls based on ...

This paper presents a learning model that enables a robot to acquire body representation for its face which is invisible to itself while the robot touches it. Two processes are simultaneously carried out: self-organization of tactile sensor unit configuration though the visuo-tactile sensations by self-induced motor behaviors, and facial part detection based on the discontinuity of sensor values.

In this report we describe how the tactile smoothness of shaven beards depends on the distribution of the stubble lengths remaining after shaving and on various skin parameters like coarseness and scaliness. To this end, we set up two experiments on perceived smoothness with blinded human judges. In the first experiment we used artificial beards with various stubble length distributions and stu...

In nursing, ‘touch may be the most important of all non-verbal behaviours’ (Nesbitt Blondis and Jackson 1982) but Tutton (1998) questions whether nurses actually reflect on their own use of touch and the potential that touch has to contribute to high quality care. Tutton (1998) suggests that touch in nursing is more often associated with procedures, and that this ‘powerful expression’ may be un...

This papers analyzes the reliability of radius of curvature estimates from tactile sensor data. A linear elastic model is used to t the indenter parameters, load, location, and curvature, to the sensor output. It was found that both contact models and calibration techniques could dramatically eeect the bias and variance of the estimated indenter parameters. The Fourier series is found to be an ...