The beginning of neurohaptics: Controlling cognitive interaction via brain haptic interface

Abstract

This study showed an example of neurohaptic interface which can be the direct connector between haptics and brain. We investigated the neural activities of motion which are essential tasks for haptic interaction. Eating was adopted to explore the neural activities from the functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) imaging. Subjects carried out real motion, action observation, and motor imagery. From this study we convinced that the action observation and motor imagery may create the similar neural activities to the active movement. In addition, we showed the feasibility of an fNIRS integrated brain haptic interaction based on the neural mechanism of action observation. Implications of this study suggested that the neurohaptics can play a more active role in realistic haptic interaction for the real applications including brain computer interface.