| Summary: | The study presented in this paper details the development and experimental testing of a novel, magnetic, tactile feedback device that is able to deliver a stimulus to a patch of skin on the lower arm of a user. The device utilizes magnets to deliver a sensation that is not dependent on controlling specific frequency bands to stimulate the mechanoreceptors, as is the case with vibro-tactile methods. The device was tested on human volunteers to evaluate its ability to induce a response from the user through the magnetic interface. The study aims to quantify the ability of the user to sense the stimulus by analysis of the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) and delay in response under different experimental conditions. Three different speeds and two different distances were explored for the magnetic interface. A two-way, repeated-measures ANOVA with post-hoc analysis was performed for the percentage of correct responses, delay in response time, and area under the curve (AUC) of the obtained ROCs. The results showed that the different conditions had a significant effect on the number of correct responses and the AUC, but not on the delay. The magnetic interface thus needs to be optimized across different parameters to deliver the best detectable stimulus to the user. Future work includes further development of the device and working towards a comparative trial with other tactile feedback approaches.
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