NEUROHAPTICS

Understanding Neurohaptics

Neurohaptics is an emerging field of study that strives to understand the complex neural representation provoked in response to tactile and/or kinesthetic stimuli. This field has garnered a noticeable attention over the past decade not only in neuro-scientific research but also in medical, marketing and engineering fields. We define neurohaptics as: the science and technology that investigates the neural representation and cognitive modulations associated with tactile and/or kinesthetic haptic interactions. There are two ultimate goals of this line of research:

  1. To find and understand the neural correlates that are associated with a particular quality of a haptic experience.

  2. To develop neural models that can quantify human haptic experience based on brain activities, and simulate human haptic responses during haptic interaction.

Particularly, we aim in creating computational models for the quality-of-haptic-experience based on EEG data. Such models could eliminate the need for subjective reporting of a haptic experience and quantitatively provide feedback on the user’s experience. Computational models retrained using machine and deep learning models using the acquired EEG data. Experiences such as haptic delay, temperature encoding, haptic texture, stiffness and vibration can be modeled through the neurohaptic framework. These models are then used to inform haptic technology designers for more interactive and reliable products in fields such as medical simulation and education, entertainment, rehabilitation, and marketing.

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Individuals Involved

  1. Wanjoo Park

  2. Haneen Alsuradi

Publications

  • Haneen Alsuradi, Wanjoo Park and Mohamad Eid. “Midfrontal Theta Oscillation Encodes Haptic Delay”. Scientific Reports (2021)

  • Haneen Alsuradi and Mohamad Eid. “Trial-based Classification of Haptic Tasks Based on EEG Data” 2021 IEEE World Haptics Conference

  • Babushkin, Vahan, et al. "EEG-based Classification of the Intensity of Emotional Responses." 2021 10th International IEEE/EMBS Conference on Neural Engineering (NER). IEEE, 2021.

  • Haneen Alsuradi, Wanjoo Park, and Mohamad Eid. "Explainable Classification of EEG Data for an Active Touch Task Using Shapley Values." International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction. Springer, Cham, 2020

  • Haneen Alsuradi, et al. "Detection of tactile feedback on touch-screen devices using EEG data." 2020 IEEE Haptics Symposium (HAPTICS). IEEE, 2020

  • Haneen Alsuradi, Wanjoo Park, and Mohamad Eid. "EEG-Based neurohaptics research: A literature review." IEEE Access 8 (2020): 49313-49328.

  • Wanjoo Park, Muhammad Hassan Jamil, and Mohamad Eid, “Neural Activations Associated with Friction Stimulation on Touch-screen Devices”, Frontiers in Neurorobotics, April 2019.

  • Wanjoo Park, Muhammad Hassan Jamil and Mohamad Eid, “Prefrontal and Interhemispheric Functional EEG Connectivity in Presence and Absence of Tactile Stimulation”, International Workshop on Haptic and Audio Interaction Design, Lille, France, March 2019.

  • Wanjoo Park and Mohamad Eid, “Differences in Beta Oscillation of the Middle Frontal Cortex with or without Tactile Stimulation in Active Touch Task”, EuroHaptics 2018.