Discover the study, published in June in Nature’s Scientific Reports, led by the Sense Innovation and Research Center, a dynamic player in the Valais health and movement sciences innovation ecosystem, S.M.A.R.T. Confluence. This research shows how introducing digital haptics into a tablet can improve performance in a central visual search task.
Specifically, reaction times to a central visual search task can be facilitated when a simultaneous task on the tablet is performed based solely on haptics.
A technology with multiple potential
Dr. Ruxandra Tivadar, the lead author of this work, points to this application of digital haptic technology more generally. “In general, my dissertation work shows how digital haptics can serve both the general public, for example by modifying in-car technologies, and the visually impaired by providing a tool through which text or images can be immediately and dynamically rendered as a haptic display.”
Micah Murray, associate professor in the Department of Radiology at the University Hospital of Lausanne and University of Lausanne, describes the impact of this work: “Digital haptic technologies exist today. This work demonstrates why these technologies are critically important to make drivers safer by reacting faster. Touchscreens are universally present, but their full potential to show how we can best use our senses to interact with our world is still in its infancy.”
A word about the Sense, research and innovation Center
This research is an example of the work of the Sense Centre for Innovation and Research, which is a joint partnership of the University Hospital of Lausanne (CHUV), the University of Lausanne (UNIL) and the University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland – Valais (HES-SO Valais-Wallis).
The study is the result of collaboration with the Fondation Asile des aveugles, the CIBM Centre for Biomedical Imaging, the Institute of Informatics of the University of Bern, the University of Geneva, and Hap2u. Financial support was provided by the Swiss National Science Foundation and a grantor advised by Carigest SA.
Reference
Tivadar RI, Arnold RC, Turoman N, Knebel JF, and Murray MM (2022) Digital Haptics Improve Speed of Visual Search Performance in a Dual-Task Setting. Scientific Reports DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-13827-5
Contacts et information
- Prof. Micah Murray, Directeur Scientifique et Académique, The Sense Innovation and Research
Center, micah.murray@chuv.ch ; +41 79 556 63 55 - Mr. Esteban Crespo, Communication & Marketing, The Sense Innovation and Research Center,
esteban.crespo@hevs.ch; +41 79 369 64 46
Read the press release here (in french) : TheSense-CDP-Haptic