Sensory Perception & Interaction Research Group

Haptic feedback is an important element that needs to be carefully designed in computer music interfaces. This paper presents an evaluation of several force renderings for target acquisition in space when used to support a music related task. The study presented here addresses only one musical aspect: the need to repeat elements accurately in time and in content. Several force scenarios will be rendered over a simple 3D target acquisition task and users’ performance will be quantitatively and qualitatively evaluated. The results show how the users’ subjective preference for a particular kind of force support does not always correlate to a quantitative measurement of performance enhancement. We describe a way in which a control mapping for a musical interface could be achieved without contradicting the users’ preferences as obtained from the study.