| NSF Org: |
IIS Division of Information & Intelligent Systems |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | August 8, 2013 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | May 10, 2016 |
| Award Number: | 1319802 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Ephraim Glinert
IIS Division of Information & Intelligent Systems CSE Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering |
| Start Date: | August 1, 2013 |
| End Date: | July 31, 2018 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $352,173.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $380,773.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
FY 2014 = $13,800.00 FY 2016 = $14,800.00 |
| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
4202 E FOWLER AVE TAMPA FL US 33620-5800 (813)974-2897 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
4202 E Fowler Ave, ENB 118 Tampa FL US 33620-5350 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | HCC-Human-Centered Computing |
| Primary Program Source: |
01001415DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT 01001617DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT |
| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.070 |
ABSTRACT
It is difficult to simultaneously convey the subtle forces and motions of a task to another person when teaching a physical skill. A common technique is for the expert to move the novice through the task. But this guiding motion is only partially effective at portraying the full experience because the novice only performs the task passively. To fully experience the physical interaction, an active recreation of the actions would be much more effective. The PI's goal in this research is to enable a person to recreate the actions performed by another person while fully experiencing the forces that result from those actions. To this end, the PI will explore a bimanual approach that takes advantage of our inherent ability to synchronize motions between both sides of our bodies, to allow a person to independently generate a desired path while feeling the task-related forces actively. Note how easy it is to simultaneously draw a pair of identical circles (or other shape) with both hands. Based on this observation, and in contrast to training methods that guide the dominant hand, the PI's method will guide the non-dominant hand and ask the individual to recreate the motions in the dominant hand, which will receive all the forces involved in the interaction. In this way, one arm will both receive forces while actively generating motions and will fully experience the task forces. Prior to implementing and testing this bimanual guidance method, several experiments will be conducted to determine the involved sensorimotor control parameters; specifically, hypotheses will be tested to evaluate our abilities to recreate a motion that is applied to one hand and to evaluate whether people can be taught to perceive passively applied forces similarly to actively applied forces. In contrast to methods that aim to make the physical interaction with an environment as realistic as possible, this method is transformative in that it aims to make the perception of the physical interaction as similar as possible to another person's actions by incorporating the human's sensorimotor control system. The scientific challenge lies in determining how the two modalities (force from one side and position from the other) are integrated and in determining and overcoming the sensorimotor delays associated with perception and recreating the force.
Broader Impacts: This research will fundamentally advance our understanding of force perception, bimanual interactions, and how forces and motions are cognitively integrated to perceive objects in active and passive tasks. The work will enable one person to fully experience the same physical interaction as another person, which will transform teaching and training techniques for surgeons, athletes, and helicopter and airplane pilots, among others. In addition to directly supporting a graduate and an undergraduate student, this research will also impact engineering students in the PI's class on haptics who will learn about performing psychophysical experiments on humans.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
When teaching a physical skill, it is difficult to simultaneously convey the subtle forces and motions of a task to another person. One reason for the difficulty is that a force applied passively to a person is perceived differently than the same force when a person actively applies it. To fully experience the physical interaction, both the motions and forces need to be actively generated, but this is not typically possible when teaching physical skills. A common teaching technique is for the expert to move the novice through the task, but this guiding motion is only partially effective at portraying the full experience because the novice only performs the task passively. An active recreation of the actions will be much more effective.
The solution examined in this research used the inherent ability of humans to synchronize the motions between both sides of their bodies. Note how easy it is to simultaneously draw a circle with both hands. The bimanual method allows one person to independently generate the desired path while feeling the task-related forces actively. For example, in contrast to training methods that guide the dominant hand, this method guides the non-dominant hand and ask the individual to recreate the motions in the dominant hand, which receives all the forces involved in the interaction. In this way, the dominant arm both receives forces while actively generating motions and fully experiences the task forces.
The results of this research are being used to understand and advance teaching and training techniques in many areas, such as surgical training, physical therapy, sports, and helicopter and airplane pilots. This research also provides fundamental insights into the nature of force and motion perception and the effect that actions have on those perceptions, which directly impacts how individuals interact with machines, computers, and robots. Another application is to separate cognitive and physical dominance. The cognitive dominance could be provided on one hand from an autopilot, person, or robotic assistant and would guide the user who would have physical dominance on the system. This would prevent the guidance forces from directly interacting with and altering the physical system.
To allow many people to experience some of the bimanual motions examined as part of this research, an app has been released called Pat & Rub. This app tests how you can simultaneously perform different motions with each hand. Pat & Rub is available for download on the Apple App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pat-rub-two-handed-game-of-coordination/id934555994?mt=8
Last Modified: 10/30/2018
Modified by: Kyle B Reed
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