Effect of stiffness on tapping performance. Do you rely on force to keep synchronised along with a metronome?

Damien Couroussé (1) , Jean-Loup Florens (1) , Annie Luciani (1)

1 ACROE - ACROE

Several works have examined the robustness of the sound-action loop to auditory delay, and the effects of delay on performance. In this paper we propose a complementary approach, by modifying the stiffness of the tapped object. Participants had to perform synchronous tapping along with a metronome reference, using a one degree-of-freedom haptic device. Two experimental conditions were tested: with and without sound from the tapped object. Dynamics of the experiment were recorded in order to have a closer look at the dynamic factors affecting performance. Results show that the increase of the stiffness of the tapped object leaded to a decrease of the asynchrony, indicating that the modification of the force dynamics has an effect on performance. On the basis of this observation, an explanation of the negative asynchrony effect is proposed. At last, we show that sound feedback improves performance only when the stiffness is very low.

Domaines: Synthèse d'image et réalité virtuelle [cs.GR]; Interface homme-machine [cs.HC]; Son [cs.SD]

Damien Couroussé, Jean-Loup Florens, Annie Luciani. Effect of stiffness on tapping performance. Do you rely on force to keep synchronised along with a metronome?. 2nd International Conference on Enactive Interfaces, 2005, Gênes, Italy. pp.10. ⟨hal-00910629⟩