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"Haptics" is a Greek word meaning "the science of touch." In the real world, we rely on our sense of touch to do everyday tasks such as dialing a touch-tone phone, finding first gear in a manual transmission car, or playing a musical instrument like a guitar or a piano which all heavily rely on the tactile and kinesthetic cues we receive. Tactile cues are sensations like textures, vibrations, and bumps whereas kinesthetic cues are contours and shapes and sensations like the weight of a stone, the resistance of stirring molasses, or the impact of hitting a tennis racquet's sweet spot. These cues help give direction and guide our movements.
In the digital world, we are usually forced to interact with purely visual cues. Ever try using the Windows Calculator with the mouse? It's incredibly frustrating and virtually impossible to click on the little number buttons with any kind of grace and dexterity. Yet the task is not that different from dialing a touch-tone phone, which you can effortlessly do with your eyes closed.
One of the main reasons why the Calculator is so clumsy is that it lacks the rich information you get from your sense of touch when moving from button to button on a phone's dial pad. Haptics technology can simulate and add back these kinds of tactile and kinesthetic sensations so that computer interfaces not only look but also feel (in the literal sense of the word) like the interfaces you're accustomed to in the real world.
Physiology of Haptics - How does it work?
Haptics is the science and physiology of the sense of touch. There is a large section of the brain called the primary sensory cortex that is responsible for processing all the rich information flowing in from mechanoreceptors in your fingers, your face, and all over your body. These mechanoreceptors have names like Pacinian and Meissner's corpuscles and Merkel's disks. They are what allow you to feel things like touch, pressure, stretching, and motion.
When these mechanoreceptors stop functioning, everyday tasks that have become second nature to you suddenly become impossible. Have you ever tried walking when your leg has fallen asleep or tried tying your shoe after playing in the snow without gloves? The difficulty and clumsiness of those tasks arise not because of a loss of dexterity or motor skills, but because your mechanoreceptors are no longer sending critical information about touch, pressure, stretching, and motion to your brain. Similarly, hitting a home run, a forehand winner, or 300-yard drive would lose a lot of its satisfaction if you didn't get that "sweet spot" feeling when the ball was struck.
So why is it that when you sit down in front of a computer, cell phone, PDA, or any digital interface, you are presented solely with visual feedback, and maybe a little auditory feedback? Your primary sensory cortex, the part of your brain responsible for your wonderful, sophisticated sense of touch, may as well go into hibernation since information is presented almost exclusively in text, pictures, and color, but not in textures, shapes, and touch.
By adding back the tactile and kinesthetic cues you've come to expect in the real world, Immersion is transforming the computing world and human-machine interfaces everywhere with haptics. It's time to wake up your brain and rouse it from hibernation!
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