Perceiving Roughness via a Rigid Probe: Effects of Exploration Speed

Abstract This study investigates the psychophysical consequences for roughness perception of altering the speed with which textured surfaces are explored using a rigid probe. Two ranges of probe speed are used: a 4-fold change (Experiment 1) and a 10-fold change (Experiment 2). The data are examined in terms of the effects of speed upon the psychophysical roughness functions (i.e., perceived roughness as a function of interelement spacing). In addition, we perform a global comparison of the relative magnitude of haptic speed effects across current and previous experiments, using a new measure that we derive here. We discover that roughness constancy declines as the range of speed is reduced, sometimes quite substantially so. The results are considered as well in terms…