Age-Related Differences in Perceptual Vibrotactile Quality Assessment of a Tactile Codec

For haptic data transmission it is common to utilize codecs to compress the original signals. These codecs are generally built on human perceptual models. Perceptual quality assessment studies, in which participants have to rate the perceived quality of such compressed signals, are an established tool to evaluate the performance of a given codec. In order to extend while also maintain consistency with previous work on evaluating the perceptual quality of vibrotactile codecs, we included two different age groups in our assessment procedure that is based on perceptual comparison judgements, while keeping the signal and compression ratio selection consistent with prior work. The ratings of the perceptual qualities of the compressed signals were associated with compression ratio, material and interaction speed. Older participants showed a greater between-person variability in quality rating scores but no significant difference in mean rating from younger adults. Our results suggest that the quality of compressed vibrotactile signal can vary in a material-, and interaction speed-dependent manner. The larger between-person variability in perceived quality of compressed signals among older adults calls for future studies about its generality and impacts on codec designs in larger samples.