This study investigated how the congruency between visual and tactile information presented by a touch-panel-based tactile texture display influences subjective impressions of digital content. Images of stuffed animals were displayed on the screen, and when participants rubbed the surface, tactile texture stimuli generated by electrostatic friction were presented to the finger. Participants rated the perceived congruency between the visual texture and the tactile stimulus, as well as the familiarity they felt toward the stuffed animals and the enjoyment of the experience. Significant positive correlations were found between congruency and familiarity and between congruency and enjoyment, with mean correlation coefficients of 0.83 and 0.71, respectively, across 11 participants. These results suggest that the more visual and tactile information are perceived as congruent, the more familiar and enjoyable digital content tends to feel. In contrast, inter-rater reliability was low, indicating substantial individual differences in which tactile stimuli were evaluated as highly congruent. These findings suggest that providing individually appropriate texture feedback through tactile texture displays has the potential to enhance the affective value of digital content.
MARUYAMA et al. (Thu,) studied this question.