Design and Evaluation of a Multimodal Haptic Vest

The human torso encompasses a large haptic perceptual area where cutaneous feedback can be delivered. Haptic vests can provide different effects in order to present information or enrich and even alter perception. Over the last decades, different haptic vest designs have been proposed for use in spatial navigation aid and virtual environments. However, most of the designs so far used one type of stimulation only. Here we present a haptic vest design that can provide feedback in three cutaneous modalities: vibrotactile feedback, punctual force, and warmth. We conducted a first evaluation experiment to study the suitability of our design. We conclude that our design is suited to deliver multimodal feedback to the torso area. The incorporation of different haptic modalities on the vest allows the presentation of diverse perceptual effects that can be beneficial in altering human time perception.