Recording Device for Natural Haptic Textures Felt with the Bare Fingertip

Abstract. The perception of haptic textures depends on the mechan-ical interaction between a surface and a biological sensor. A texture is apprehended by sliding one’s fingers over the surface of an object. We de-scribe here an apparatus that makes it possible to record the mechanical fluctuations arising from the friction between a human fingertip and eas-ily interchangeable samples. Using this apparatus, human participants tactually scanned material samples. The analysis of the results indicates that the biomechanical characteristics of individual fingertips clearly af-fected the mechanical fluctuations. Nevertheless, the signals generated for a single material sample under different conditions showed some in-variant features. We propose that this apparatus can be a valuable tool for the analysis of natural haptic surfaces