Mental Rotation Skill Shapes Haptic Exploration Strategies. 2022

Fabrizio Leo, and Giulio Sandini, and Alessandra Sciutti

Haptic exploration strategies have been traditionally studied focusing on hand movements and neglecting how objects are moved in space. However, in daily life situations touch and movement cannot be disentangled. Furthermore, the relation between object manipulation as well as performance in haptic tasks and spatial skill is still little understood. In this study, we used iCube, a sensorized cube recording its orientation in space as well as the location of the points of contact on its faces. Participants had to explore the cube faces where little pins were positioned in varying number and count the number of pins on the faces with either even or odd number of pins. At the end of this task, they also completed a standard visual mental rotation test (MRT). Results showed that higher MRT scores were associated with better performance in the task with iCube both in term of accuracy and exploration speed and exploration strategies associated with better performance were identified. High performers tended to rotate the cube so that the explored face had the same spatial orientation (i.e., they preferentially explored the upward face and rotated iCube to explore the next face in the same orientation). They also explored less often twice the same face and were faster and more systematic in moving from one face to the next. These findings indicate that iCube could be used to infer subjects' spatial skill in a more natural and unobtrusive fashion than with standard MRTs.

UI MeSH Term Description Entries
D006225 Hand The distal part of the arm beyond the wrist in humans and primates, that includes the palm, fingers, and thumb. Hands
D006801 Humans Members of the species Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens,Man (Taxonomy),Human,Man, Modern,Modern Man
D000089862 Haptic Technology The study of the use of touch and KINESTHESIS in order to produce HAPTIC COMPUTER INTERFACES that will allow users to interact with digital objects by kinesthetic feedback, force feedback, and tactile feedback. Haptic Communication Technology,Haptic Feedback Technology,Haptic Perception Technology,Haptics,Touch Feedback Technology,Communication Technologies, Haptic,Communication Technology, Haptic,Haptic Communication Technologies,Haptic Feedback Technologies,Haptic Perception Technologies,Haptic Technologies,Perception Technologies, Haptic,Perception Technology, Haptic,Technologies, Haptic,Technologies, Haptic Communication,Technologies, Haptic Feedback,Technologies, Haptic Perception,Technologies, Touch Feedback,Technology, Haptic,Technology, Haptic Communication,Technology, Haptic Feedback,Technology, Haptic Perception,Technology, Touch Feedback,Touch Feedback Technologies
D013028 Space Perception The awareness of the spatial properties of objects; includes physical space. Perception, Space,Perceptions, Space,Space Perceptions
D014110 Touch Sensation of making physical contact with objects, animate or inanimate. Tactile stimuli are detected by MECHANORECEPTORS in the skin and mucous membranes. Tactile Sense,Sense of Touch,Taction,Sense, Tactile,Senses, Tactile,Tactile Senses,Tactions,Touch Sense,Touch Senses
D055698 Touch Perception The process by which the nature and meaning of tactile stimuli are recognized and interpreted by the brain, such as realizing the characteristics or name of an object being touched. Tactile Perception,Perception, Tactile,Perception, Touch,Perceptions, Tactile,Perceptions, Touch,Tactile Perceptions,Touch Perceptions

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