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