Effect of Vibration Frequency Mismatch on Apparent Tactile Motion

Most studies of haptic illusions assume that the actuators used are identical and therefore produce vibrations with the same frequency. We ran two experiments to investigate the effect of mismatched vibratory frequencies on the perception of apparent tactile motion. We simulated having actuators with different properties by changing the frequency and amplitude of vibrations produced by a wideband actuator. We varied frequencies from 50 to 250 Hz with adjusted amplitudes to normalize the perceived intensity. The results suggest that the apparent tactile motion illusion is robust to mismatches in the resonant frequency of actuators and that it can therefore be produced by pairs of haptic devices with different specifications.