Haptic Feedback Enhances Force Skill Learning

This paper explores the use of haptic feedback to teach an abstract motor skill that requires recalling a sequence of forces. Participants are guided along a trajectory and are asked to learn a sequence of one-dimensional forces via three paradigms: haptic training, visual training, or combined visuohaptic training. The extent of learning is measured by accuracy of force recall. We find that recall following visuohaptic training is significantly more accurate than recall following visual or haptic training alone, although haptic training alone is inferior to visual training alone. This suggests that in conjunction with visual feedback, haptic training may be an effective tool for teaching sensorimotor skills that have a force-sensitive component to them, such as surgery. We also present a dynamic programming paradigm to align and compare spatiotemporal haptic trajectories