Presentation of Tactile Pleasantness Using Airborne Ultrasound

In this study, we investigate the physical condition to produce a pleasant feeling by airborne ultrasound stimulus. Since the midair haptic stimulus can precisely control its position and force amplitude, we can evaluate the effect on pleasantness by various spatiotemporal patterns with high reproducibility. In the experiment, we presented a stroke tactile stimulus on a forearm and a palm. We changed the vibration frequency from 0 to 200 Hz while changing the movement speed from 10 to 300 mm/s, evaluating the pleasantness using Likert scale. For objective evaluation, we measured the skin potential level. The experimental result shows that non-modulated stimuli with their speed of 300 mm/s are felt the most pleasant stimulus, while the objective index showed no significant differences.