Bi-manual Skin Stretch Feedback Embedded within a Game Controller

This presents the design and initial characterization of a video game controller prototype with tactile skin stretch displays embedded into its thumb joysticks. With this prototype, we verify that people are capable of the same high accuracy rates for identifying direction cues as was observed previously. Modern game controllers typically have users angle their thumbs diagonally inwards to reach the joysticks, however, this may affect the cognition of skin stretch cues. No significant reduction in performance due to mental rotation of stimuli delivered in the angled thumb configuration was shown. Furthermore, the angled configuration appears to have ergonomic advantages.