Haptic guidance improves the visuo-manual tracking of trajectories.

Jérémy Bluteau (1) , Sabine Coquillart (1) , Yohan Payan (2) , Edouard Gentaz (3)

1 I3D - 3 dimensional interaction
2 TIMC-IMAG-GMCAO - Gestes Medico-chirurgicaux Assistés par Ordinateur
3 FRE 2987 - Laboratoire Cognition et Comportement

BACKGROUND: Learning to perform new movements is usually achieved by following visual demonstrations. Haptic guidance by a force feedback device is a recent and original technology which provides additional proprioceptive cues during visuo-motor learning tasks. The effects of two types of haptic guidances-control in position (HGP) or in force (HGF)-on visuo-manual tracking ("following") of trajectories are still under debate. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPALS FINDINGS: Three training techniques of haptic guidance (HGP, HGF or control condition, NHG, without haptic guidance) were evaluated in two experiments. Movements produced by adults were assessed in terms of shapes (dynamic time warping) and kinematics criteria (number of velocity peaks and mean velocity) before and after the training sessions. CONCLUSION/SIGNIFICANCE: These results show that the addition of haptic information, probably encoded in force coordinates, play a crucial role on the visuo-manual tracking of new trajectories.

Mots clés: Haptic guidance; trajectory; visuo-manual tracking

Domaines: Biomécanique [physics.med-ph]; Biomécanique [physics.med-ph]; Neurosciences; Neurosciences [q-bio.NC]

Jérémy Bluteau, Sabine Coquillart, Yohan Payan, Edouard Gentaz. Haptic guidance improves the visuo-manual tracking of trajectories.. PLoS ONE, 2008, 3 (3), pp.e1775. ⟨10.1371/journal.pone.0001775⟩. ⟨hal-00264408⟩