Coherence of Two Methods to Evaluate the Realism of Tactile Textures Presented by Surface Tactile Display

In evaluating the realism of textures presented by tactile displays, rating-based subjective evaluation is often adopted because of its simplicity; however, its reliability is frequently questioned. This study investigates the reliability of rating evaluations for an electrostatic friction-based tactile display from two perspectives. First, intrarater and inter-rater reliability were assessed using intraclass correlation coefficients. Second, rating results were compared with Thurstone’s Case V scores derived from a paired-comparison method, which is regarded as psychophysically reliable. Although paired-comparison methods require a large number of trials and incur high experimental costs, examining whether rating evaluations can serve as a substitute is of practical significance. In the experiment, fabric texture images were presented as visual stimuli, while multiple tactile textures synthesized from three sinusoidal components were presented. Participants performed rating and paired-comparison tasks based on how similar the perceived tactile sensation was to the tactile impression evoked by the visual image. The results revealed a significantly positive correlation between the mean ratings and the Case V scores within individuals, with a median correlation coefficient of 0.90 across participants. These findings suggest that, in texture realism evaluation, rating-based methods can provide results that are broadly consistent with those obtained using paired-comparison methods.