The potential of touch technology

In this paper, we provide a perspective of touch technology. Two illustrative examples are shown here to explain the potential of touch technology. One is TouchLens, a new type of haptic devices different from tactile sensors and displays. Through this haptic device by our hand we can perceive geometric information of tiny bumps and holes that are difficult to be detected by our bare hand. TouchLens is not only useful for inspections in manufacturing but also attractive as a fun haptic tool by which everyone can understand the power of haptic technology easily. The other relates to a haptic illusion called the velvet hand illusion in which we can feel an illusory surface with strange velvety, slippery or oily texture when we lightly rub a wire mesh of hexagonal pattern between our hands, keeping our hands pressed gently together. We found that moving line stimuli were also effective for eliciting the velvet hand illusion. The observed illusory phenomena caused by a variety of moving line stimuli allow us to see the underlying mechanism of human tactile information processing. Because the obtained illusory sensation is very impressive, it is expected that the illusion can be utilized as a main effect of a new type of haptic display.