Cognitive and Physical Activities Impair Perception of Smartphone Vibrations

TL;DR

This study investigates how cognitive and physical activities impair smartphone vibration perception, developing a platform and conducting experiments that reveal increased perception thresholds and response times during such activities.

Contribution

The paper introduces a smartphone platform for out-of-lab vibration perception testing and quantifies how cognitive and physical activities impair vibration sensitivity.

Findings

Physical activity significantly increases vibration perception thresholds.

Cognitive activity significantly increases vibration perception thresholds.

Cognitive activity also prolongs vibration response time.

Abstract

Vibration feedback is common in everyday devices, from virtual reality systems to smartphones. However, cognitive and physical activities may impede our ability to sense vibrations from devices. In this study, we develop and characterize a smartphone platform to investigate how a shape-memory task (cognitive activity) and walking (physical activity) impair human perception of smartphone vibrations. We measured how Apple's Core Haptics Framework parameters can be used for haptics research, namely how hapticIntensity modulates amplitudes of 230 Hz vibrations. A 23-person user study found that physical (p<0.001) and cognitive (p=0.004) activity increase vibration perception thresholds. Cognitive activity also increases vibration response time (p<0.001). This work also introduces a smartphone platform that can be used for out-of-lab vibration perception testing. Researchers can use our smartphone platform and results to design better haptic devices for diverse, unique populations.