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What is haptics?
haptics (adj.) Of or relating to the sense of touch; tactile. |
American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language – Fourth Edition |
Perhaps surprisingly, the term “haptics” was first introduced in 1931 and its origins can be traced back to the Greek words haptikos meaning able to touch and haptesthai which translates to able to lay hold of (Revesz, 1950; Krueger, 1989). Today the term, in its broadest sense, encompasses the study of touch and the human interaction with the external environment via touch. The field of haptics, inherently multidisciplinary, involves research from engineering, robotics, developmental and experimental psychology, cognitive science, computer science, and educational technology. This field has grown dramatically as haptic researchers are involved in the development, testing, and refinement of tactile and force feedback devices as well as supporting software that allow users to sense ("feel") and manipulate three-dimensional virtual objects (McLaughlin, Hespanha & Sukhatme, 2002). In addition to basic psychophysical research on human haptics, work is being done in application areas such as surgical simulation, medical training, scientific visualization, and assistive technology for the blind and visually impaired. Technological advances now allow for haptics to be added to a variety of computer applications. Physicians use remote touch in minimally invasive surgery through the use of haptic interfaces with force sensors that allow the surgeon to “feel” tissues and organs during surgery (Lederman & Klatzky, 2001). Haptics has been added to virtual reality environments. A recent study found that participants were able to more efficiently learn virtual mazes when haptics were added than when there were no haptic feedback cues (Insko, et al., 2001). Our work focuses on augmenting scientific visualizations with haptics for use in an educational setting.
Haptics and Education
As part of this project we are exploring the impact of haptics on students' learning of science concepts. Haptics involves both kinesthetic movement and tactile perception. The term tactile is used primarily in referring to passive touch (being touched); but haptics involves active touch such as a student manipulating an object during hands-on science explorations. This active touch involves intentional actions that an individual chooses to do, whereas passive touch can occur without any initiating action.
For educators, involving students in consciously choosing to investigate the properties of an object is a powerful motivator and increases attention to learning. Contrast this active manipulation with passive learning, such as watching a science video. In active manipulation the student expends energy and makes a decision to manipulate materials. In more passive learning, such as watching a video, the student is asked only to sit and observe. It is more difficult to maintain attention and motivation in a passive learning context than an active one. Associated with active manipulation is the opportunity for the student to control actions, learning, and even the speed of exploration. Control has been shown to be an important part of intrinsic motivation (Deci, & Ryan, 1987; Deci et al., 1982). Thus far, the results of our studies have supported these assertions; students find the haptic technology exciting, engaging, and interesting.
Our Research
One of the most commonly used devices, and one of the interfaces employed in our studies, is SensAble Technologies' PHANToM (shown below). It is a small, desk-grounded robot-like arm that permits simulation of fingertip contact with virtual objects through a pen-like stylus.
The PHANToM desktop device from SensAble Technologies, Inc.In one study (Jones et al., 2003) we explored a new instructional tool (the nanoManipulator) that combines the PHANToM and an Atomic Force Microscope (AFM). With this new haptics application, students are able to feel nanosized materials such as viruses that are imaged under the AFM (described further below). In essence the user is afforded the opportunity to have a “hands-on” experience with objects at the nanometer scale that are too small to be touched or even seen otherwise. We examined how tactile and kinesthetic feedback influences students' learning about virus structure and function. This research with middle and high school students found that students found the experience engaging and developed more positive attitudes about science. Additionally, students showed significant gains in their understanding of viruses (particularly virus morphology and diversity of types).
The cost and logistics of delivering the live interaction with the atomic force microscope and virus samples limits the availability of this type of haptic instruction and prompted a second study. Here, students experienced a computer mediated inquiry program that incorporated stored images of the nanoManipulator's interaction with a virus sample. The goal of this exploratory study was to examine the differential impact of augmenting the computer mediated inquiry three feedback devices: the PHANToM (a sophisticated haptic desktop device), a Sidewinder (a haptic gaming joystick), and a mouse (no haptic feedback). Results suggest that the addition of haptic feedback provides a more immersive learning environment that not only makes the instruction more engaging but may also influence the way in which the students construct their understandings about viruses as evidenced by an increase in their use of spontaneously generated analogies.
Currently work is underway to explore how the addition of haptic feedback to computer-generated 3-D virtual models of an animal cell influences middle school students' understandings of cell concepts. The Haptic Cell Exploration instructional program (shown below) begins with a virtual model that depicts the 3-D nature and spatial arrangement of an animal cell including its typical parts (organelles).
The Haptic Cell: users can feel the organellesThe structural differences (i.e. relative size, surface area, texture, shape, elasticity & rigidity) of the parts are emphasized. Students can “poke' through the cell membrane, “feel” the viscosity of the cytoplasm, and “touch” the rough endoplasmic reticulum. The program also highlights the mechanisms behind the cell membrane's selective permeability. Students learn how certain molecules traverse the membrane via the various types of passive transport by trying to pass these substances through the membrane and “feeling” the associated forces (illustrated below).
Passive transport simulationHaptic Perception
Investigating the efficacy of haptic technology as an educational tool has caused our group to consider more deeply haptic perception and the interactions between visual and haptic information. Haptic perception involves sensors in the skin as well as the hand and arm. The movement that accompanies hands-on exploration involves different types of mechanoreceptors in the skin (involving deformation, thermoreception, and vibration of the skin), as well as receptors in the muscles, tendons, and joints involved in movement of the object (Verry, 1998). These different receptors contribute to a neural synthesis that interprets position, movement, and mechanical skin inputs. Druyan (1997) argues that this combination of kinesthetics and sensory perception creates particularly strong neural pathways in the brain.
For the science learner, kinesthetics allows the individual to explore concepts related to location, range, speed, acceleration, tension, and friction. Haptics enables the learner to identify hardness, density, size, outline, shape, texture, oiliness, wetness, and dampness (involving both temperature and pressure sensations) (Druyan, 1997; Schiffman, 1976).
When haptics is compared to vision in the perception of objects, vision typically is superior with a number of important exceptions. Visual perception is rapid and more wholistic—allowing the learner to take in a great deal of information at one time. Alternatively, haptics involves sensory exploration over time and space. If you give a student an object to observe and feel, the student can make much more rapid observations than if you only gave the student the object to feel without the benefit of sight. But of interest to science educators is the question of determining what a haptic experience adds to a visual experience. Researchers have shown that haptics is superior to vision in helping a learner detect properties of texture (roughness/ smoothness, hardness/ softness, wetness/ dryness, stickiness, and slipperiness) as well as mircrospatial properties of pattern, compliance, elasticity, viscosity, and temperature (Lederman, 1983; Zangaladze, et al., 1999). Vision dominates when the goal is the perception of macrogeometry (shape) but haptics is superior in the perception of microgeometry (texture) (Sathian et al., 1997; Verry, 1998). Haptics and vision together are superior to either alone for many learning contexts.
Haptic Learning
Haptic learning plays an important role in a number of different learning environments. Students with visual impairments depend on haptics for learning through the use of Braille as well as other strategies (Sathian, 2000). Looked at from a constructivist's perspective, the haptic augmentation of computer-generated 3-D virtual environments, in which the student is an active participant, can be a powerful teaching tool (Lochhead, 1988; Loucks-Horsley, et al. 1990; Brooks & Brooks, 1993). Learning is often defined as the construction of knowledge as sensory data are given meaning in terms of prior knowledge (Tobin, 1990). The addition of haptics affords students the opportunity to become more fully immersed in this process of meaning-making; taking advantage of tactile, kinesthetic, experiential, and embodied knowledge in new ways. This prospective new instructional tool can have direct implications on the way in which students are taught. Perhaps soon students will be able to become immersed in a virtual animal cell; more fully exploring its structure and functioning. Physics instruction will make use of haptic feedback devices to teach students about “invisible” forces like gravity and friction more completely. Visually impaired students will learn math by touching data represented in a tangible graph and chemistry by feeling the attractive and repulsive forces associated with various compounds. In the end, the use of haptics in education is bound only by our imagination.
Haptic Devices
A haptic interface is a device which allows a user to interact with a computer by receiving tactile and kinesthetic feedback. A All haptic interface devices share the unparalleled ability to provide for simultaneous information exchange between a user and a machine as depicted below.
An illustration of the unique bi-directional information exchange of a haptic interface.A small sample of available devices:
MOMO Racing by Logitech
Speed Force by Logitech
The Phantom by Sensible Technology
CyberGrasp by Immersion Corporation
DELTA by Force Dimension
Force Feedback2 Joystick by Microscoft
Other Haptics Links
Adaptive Technology Resource Center at University of Toronto
Other Interesting Web Sites To Visit
The International Society for Haptics
Haptics-e: The Electronic Journal of Haptics Research
References
Brooks, J.G., & Brooks, M.G. (1993). In Search of Understanding: The Case for the Constructivist Classroom , Alexandria , VA : ASCD.
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1987). The support of autonomy and the control of behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53(6), 1024-1037.
Deci, E. L., Spiegel, N. H., Ryan, R. M., Koestner, R., & Kauffman, M. (1982). The effects of performance standards on teaching styles: The behavior of controlling teachers. Journal of Educational Psychology, 74, 852-859.
Druyan, S. (1997). Effect of the kinesthetic conflict on promoting scientific reasoning. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 34, 1083-1099.
Insko, B., Meehan, M., Whitton, M., & Brooks, F. (2001). Passive haptics significantly enhances virtual environments. Computer Science Technical Report 01-010, University of North Carolina , Chapel Hill , NC .
Jones, M. G., Andre, T., Superfine, R., & Taylor, R. (2003). Learning at the nanoscale: The impact of students' use of remote microscopy on concepts of viruses, scale, and microscopy. Journal of Research in Science Teaching , 40 , 303–322.
Krueger, E. L. (1989). The world of touch, by David Katz. Hillsdale , NJ : Lawrence Erlbaum.
Lederman, S. (1983). Tactile roughness perception: Spatial and temporal determinants. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 37(4), 498-511.
Lederman, S.J. & Klatzky, R.L. (2001). Feeling surfaces and objects remotely. In S.A. Simon & M.A.L. Nicolelis (Series Ed.) & R. Nelson (Volume Ed.). Methods & New Frontiers in Neuroscience. The Somatosensory System: Deciphering the Brain's Own Body Image, (pp. 103-120). Florida : CRC Press LLC.
Lochhead, J. (1988). Some pieces of the puzzle. In Constructivism in the Computer Age , Forman, G,. & Pufall, P. (Eds.) Hillsdale , NJ : Lawrence Erlbaum.
Loucks-Horsley, S., Kapitan, R., Carlson, M., Kuerbis, P., Clark, R., Melle, G., Sache, T., & Walton, E. (1990). Elementary school science for the '90s . Alexandria , Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
McLaughlin, M., Hespanha, J., & Sukhatme, G. (2002). Touch in virtual environments: Haptics and the design of interactive systems . New Jersey : Prentice Hall.
Revesz, G. (1950). The psychology and art of the blind . London : Longmans Green.
Sathian, K., Zangaladze, A., Hoffman, J., & Grafton, S. (1997). Feeling with the mind's eye. Neuroreport, 8(18), 3877-3881.
Sathian, K., (2000). Practice makes perfect: Sharper tactile perception in the blind. Neurology, 54, 2203-2204.
Schiffman, H. (1976). Sensation and perception: An integrated approach. NY: Wiley.Shapley, K. S., & Luttrell, H. D. (1993, January). Effectiveness of a teacher training model on the implementation of hands-on science. Paper presented at the Association for the Education of Teachers in Science International Conference.
Tobin, K. (1990). Research on science laboratory activities: In pursuit of better questions and answers to improve learning. School Science and Mathematics, 90 , 403-418.
Verry, R. (1998). Don't take touch for granted: An interview with Susan Lederman. Teaching Psychology, 25(1), 64-67.
Zangaladze, A., Epstein, C., Grafton, S., & Sathian, K. (1999). Involvement of visual cortex in tactile discrimination of orientation. Nature, 401, 587-590.
