Psychophysical characteristics of electrotactile stimulation: The impact of changes in stimulation pulse width and frequency on human perception

Abstract

© 2015 IEEE. Electrical stimulation and vibration stimulation are two most investigated interfaces for sending the information to humans. It is well known that change in electrical stimulation is not linearly related to the perception of sensation that humans feel. This paper presents the experiment along with results that investigate the relationship between change in electrical stimulation parameters (e.g. pulse frequency and pulse width) and perception of sensation on humans' skin. Our assumption is that human perception of the electrical stimulation improves as frequency rises (from 10 to 100Hz), (e.g. the resolution of perception rises). Psychophysics algorithms were used for both, finding minimal difference of sensation intensity (for different parameters) that humans can sense (Just noticeable difference), as well as data analysis. This research proved the assumption but also opened some new questions and gave us new ideas for future work.