Passive and active kinesthetic perception just-noticeable-difference for natural frequency of virtual dynamic systems

This paper investigates the just-noticeable-difference (JND) for natural frequency of virtual second order dynamic systems. Using a one degree-of-freedom haptic device, visual and/or haptic sensory feedback were presented during interactions with the system. Participants were instructed to either perceive passively or actively excite the system in order to discriminate natural frequencies. The JND for this virtual resonance task ranged from 3.99% to 6.96% for reference frequencies of 1 Hz and 2 Hz. Results show that sensory feedback has a significant effect on JND in passive perception, with combined visual and haptic feedback enabling the best discrimination performance. In active perception, there is no significant difference on JND with haptic and combined visual and haptic feedback. There is also no significant difference between active perception and passive perception for this JND experiment. The presentation of systems with equivalent natural frequencies but different spring stiffness resulted in no large bias toward larger stiffness and no significant difference in JND for equivalent systems. This finding indicates that human participants do not discriminate natural frequency based on the maximum force magnitude perceived, as indicated by prior studies.