I have developed "tennis elbow" from lugging this book around the past four weeks, but it is worth the pain, the effort, and the aspirin. It is also worth the (relatively speaking) bargain price. Including appendixes, this book contains 894 pages of text. The entire panorama of the neural sciences is surveyed and examined, and it is comprehensive in its scope, from genomes to social behaviors. The editors explicitly state that the book is designed as "an introductory text for students of biology, behavior, and medicine," but it is hard to imagine any audience, interested in any fragment of neuroscience at any level of sophistication, that would not enjoy this book. The editors have done a masterful job of weaving together the biologic, the behavioral, and the clinical sciences into a single tapestry in which everyone from the molecular biologist to the practicing psychiatrist can find and appreciate his or

Principles of Neural Science

Purpose: Tactile displays convey various aspects of touch through mechanical or electrical stimuli. Recent research focuses on combining these two types of stimulation (hybrid stimuli) to achieve naturalness, comfort, and reduction in the threshold, only by experiment. However, there are no computational models to study the Pacinian corpuscle’s behavior under hybrid-stimuli.

Computational Model of a Pacinian Corpuscle for Hybrid-Stimuli: Spike-Rate and Threshold Characteristics

Understanding the response of Pacinian Corpuscle (PC) for an electrical stimulus through a computational model can give better insight into the physiology. Although there are simpler models available in the literature, models simulating spike-rate and threshold characterizations are still missing. These characterizations may lead to the development of tactile displays combining both electrical and mechanical stimuli, especially high-frequency vibrations. We developed a PC model with equivalent circuits of the electrode-skin interface, PC’s neurite, and the first Ranvier node. The input electrical stimulus is a current pulse with varying amplitude (0 to 2 mA) and varying frequency (5 Hz to 1600 Hz). The model is characterized initially for the frequency response, and then the spike-rate and threshold characteristics were simulated. The spike-rate traces for electrical stimuli show the phase-locking phenomenon similar to the mechanical stimuli responses of PC, however the plateau lengths are larger for the spike-rate traces with electrical stimuli compared to that of the mechanical stimuli. This is reflected as a large difference in the threshold characteristics for one and two impulses-per-cycle. Moreover, threshold characteristics are little influenced by the neural noise. This model can be extended to study the combination of electrical and mechanical stimuli.

/pdf/computational-model-of-a-pacinian-corpuscle-for-an-2bwpvhnp9j.pdf

Computational Model of a Pacinian Corpuscle for an Electrical Stimulus: Spike-Rate and Threshold Characteristics.

Electrotactile displays provide tactile feedback using electrical currents. However, prolonged usage of them causes skin irritation and burns. This study presents a novel method to use the electrotactile display at a lower threshold by applying two subthreshold electrotactile stimuli placed nearby. This method is tested on fourteen subjects over a frequency range from 20 to 1280 Hz in the tuning curve. Two Psychophysical experiments have been conducted to measure their thresholds for individual stimuli and presented together. In the first experiment, the frequencies of both the stimuli were the same, and it showed 36% to 18% reduction in EPT of the second stimulus when the first stimulus was at 10% to 50% of its threshold. In the second experiment, Meissner and Pacinian were selectively stimulated by applying stimuli at their resonant frequencies (30 and 250 Hz, respectively), results showed slightly more reduction in the case of 250 Hz compared to 30 Hz.

Spatial Summation of Electro-Tactile Displays at Subthreshold

This article provides a systematic review of research related to Human–Computer Interaction techniques supporting training and learning in various domains including medicine, healthcare, and engineering. The focus is on HCI techniques involving Extended Reality (XR) technology which encompasses Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Mixed Reality. HCI-based research is assuming more importance with the rapid adoption of XR tools and techniques in various training and learning contexts including education. There are many challenges in the adoption of HCI approaches, which results in a need to have a comprehensive and systematic review of such HCI methods in various domains. This article addresses this need by providing a systematic literature review of a cross-section of HCI approaches involving proposed so far. The PRISMA-guided search strategy identified 1156 articles for abstract review. Irrelevant abstracts were discarded. The whole body of each article was reviewed for the remaining articles, and those that were not linked to the scope of our specific issue were also eliminated. Following the application of inclusion/exclusion criteria, 69 publications were chosen for review. This article has been divided into the following sections: Introduction; Research methodology; Literature review; Threats of validity; Future research and Conclusion. Detailed classifications (pertaining to HCI criteria and concepts, such as affordance; training, and learning techniques) have also been included based on different parameters based on the analysis of research techniques adopted by various investigators. The article concludes with a discussion of the key challenges for this HCI area along with future research directions. A review of the research outcomes from these publications underscores the potential for greater success when such HCI-based approaches are adopted during such 3D-based training interactions. Such a higher degree of success may be due to the emphasis on the design of user-friendly (and user-centric) training environments, interactions, and processes that positively impact the cognitive abilities of users and their respective learning/training experiences. We discovered data validating XR-HCI as an ascending method that brings a new paradigm by enhancing skills and safety while reducing costs and learning time through replies to three exploratory study questions. We believe that the findings of this study will aid academics in developing new research avenues that will assist XR-HCI applications to mature and become more widely adopted. 

A Systematic Review of Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) Research in Medical and Other Engineering Fields

BACKGROUND Training surgeons to use surgical robots are becoming part of surgical training curricula. We propose a novel method of training fine-motor skills such as Microscopic Selection Task (MST) for robot-assisted surgery using virtual reality (VR) with objective quantification of performance. We also introduce vibrotactile feedback (VTFB) to study its impact on training performance. METHODS We use a VR-based environment to perform MST with varying degrees of difficulties. Using a well-known human-computer interaction paradigm and incorporating VTFB, we quantify the performance: speed, precision and accuracy. RESULTS MST with VTFB showed statistically significant improvement in performance metrics leading to faster completion of MST with higher precision and accuracy compared to that without VTFB. DISCUSSION The addition of VTFB to VR-based training for robot-assisted surgeries may improve performance outcomes in real robotic surgery. VTFB, along with proposed performance metrics, can be used in training curricula for robot-assisted surgeries.

Novel virtual reality based training system for fine motor skills: Towards developing a robotic surgery training system.

The Pacinian Corpuscle (PC) is the most sensitive mechanoreceptor in the human body found in clusters of two or three. We extended our previous model of an isolated-PC to a cluster-PC focussing on ...

Coding source localization through inter-spike delay: modelling a cluster of Pacinian Corpuscles using time-division multiplexing approach.

As we constantly seek to improve and expand upon the capabilities of technology, we frequently wonder whether we use technology to its fullest extent. Studies indicate that increasing our awareness and mindfulness of our senses may lead to a journey of unexplored experiences. In this paper, we focus on the perception of mid-air haptics stimuli and whether it can be improved through mindfulness meditation. We have conducted an experiment with 22 participants given the task to recognize digits 0 to 9 drawn on their palms using a mid-air haptic device under two conditions - with and without prior mindfulness meditation. Results show that for frequencies targeting both Meissner (40 Hz) and Pacinian (200 Hz) receptors, meditation significantly improves performance of the participants, as well as increases their confidence. This suggests that including a short meditation step in haptic user interfaces could lead to improved system performance and user satisfaction.

https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3544548.3581238

MindTouch: Effect of Mindfulness Meditation on Mid-Air Tactile Perception

The rapid development of touchless systems has introduced many innovations in social interaction scenarios in recent years. People now can interact with touchless systems in social applications that are aimed to be used in everyday situations in the future. This accelerated development makes us ask, what will the next generation of touchless systems be like? How can we responsibly develop new touchless technologies in the future? To answer the first question, we brought together 20 experts to ideate, speculate, and evaluate possible touchless applications for social interactions. A total of 48 ideas were generated from two consecutive workshops. Then, to answer the second question, we critically analyzed those ideas through a thematic analysis using a responsible innovation (RI) framework, and identified key ethical considerations to guide developers, practitioners when designing future touchless systems. We argue that the social scenarios described, and the RI framework proposed in this paper are a useful starting point for responsibly designing the next generation of touchless systems.

Madhan Kumar Vasudevan

Papers

Novel virtual reality based training system for fine motor skills: Towards developing a robotic surgery training system.

Coding source localization through inter-spike delay: modelling a cluster of Pacinian Corpuscles using time-division multiplexing approach.

Computational Model of a Pacinian Corpuscle for an Electrical Stimulus: Spike-Rate and Threshold Characteristics.

MindTouch: Effect of Mindfulness Meditation on Mid-Air Tactile Perception

Responsible Innovation of Touchless Haptics: A Prospective Design Exploration in Social Interaction