Results from Pilot Testing a System for Tactile Reception of Advanced Patterns (STRAP)

Abstract

This paper presents pilot study results on the learnability and effectiveness of the System for Tactile Reception of Advanced Patterns (STRAP) that is capable of displaying complex information through tactile actuators on the user's torso. Information requirements from dismounted soldier communications and tactile design guidelines resulted in 56 distinct tactile symbols. To facilitate cognitive demands for decoding, information presentation was formalized by developing construction rules for tactile symbols and a context-free grammar for compilation of tactile sentences. The pilot study outlined trained two participants on the tactile language. Results showed they were able to reach 90% criterion in less than 3.5 hours. Furthermore, once learned, participants were able to receive and comprehend complex commands comprised of multiple tactile symbols under varying levels of workload with some success.

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