Force sharing strategies in a collaborative force detection task

The haptic modality is a direct and informative communication channel when manipulating objects jointly, but it may also be difficult to interpret. Indeed, the forces generated by the partner and the environment are summed together. This work uses techniques from psychophysics to investigate the ability of humans to untangle these two sources when collaborating in a joint perceptual task where one subject´s actions can have a strong impact on the partner´s perception. We asked 16 pairs of subjects to perform a joint force detection task, in which they had to identify the direction of a weak external force. Results unveiled a variety of force sharing strategies adopted by the dyads. We present the different strategies adopted by the dyads and their implications on the subjects´ task performance.